There's a WHAT?
by Jediempress
Summary: Riku knows more about Sora's journey than Sora thinks and his knowledge comes from something Sora never expected to see. Not yaoi for once. Video games are so informative. Will include FF 7 and 8 references.
1. Intro

Something simple for once.

Don't own the boys but I borrow them all the time.

There's a WHAT?

When Riku entered the room, determination to his step, Sora was only mildly curious. When he stopped right in front of him, he only raised an eyebrow. When he saw the look of undisguised admiration on the silver haired boy's face, he was genuinely intrigued.

"Uh, Riku?"

"How did you do it?"

"Huh?" He blinked big blue eyes in confusion. "Do what?"

"Everything." Riku waved a hand in the air. "I would have gone totally insane! I'm kinda glad now I chose the darkness. I _never_ would have done that! Not for anything in the worlds."

"What are you talking about Riku?" Sora laughed nervously. He'd done a lot of things on his travels, some of which looking back was rather embarrassing.

"You actually sang in front of those people. And you're completely tone deaf!"

"Who told you about that?" He'd never spoken of that torturous experience and he had threatened Donald and Goofy with loss of limb if they ever so much as mentioned it to any one.

"It's all in the game!" Riku exclaimed. "Jeez, Sora. Why didn't you tell me about half that stuff?"

"Cause you'd tease me to no end." Sora answered. He looked at him suspiciously. "What game?"

"Kingdom Hearts. Do not tell me you haven't heard about it."

Sora gaped. There was a _game_ about him? Dude, that would make him like… well, something but it was totally cool. "You serious? You're not teasing me again like with supposed movie about Cloud and them you found."

"Hey! Advent Children really is a movie and I'll show it to you as soon as I get a copy in a language you'd understand!" Riku protested.

Sora still didn't quite believe him. Riku saw that clearly and spun on his heel. "Fine. I'll prove it!"

A few minutes later, Riku returned with his satchel. He was digging through it, moving around sketch books and writing journals. He'd gone so artsy since coming back. Eventually, he held up a box in triumph. "Here."

He handed it to Sora and upon taking it Sora's jaw dropped. There he was with Kairi, Donald, Goofy, King Mickey, and Roxas. There were two shadowy figures in the background and they were sitting on a big bluish heart. "Where did you get this?"

"I have my sources." Riku smirked. "Wanna come to my house and play it?"

"Why?" He handed it back to Riku. "I lived it."

"Well then come help me." Riku grabbed his hand and dragged him behind him. "I want a crack at being the Keyblade Master."

Sora couldn't protest with that and allowed Riku to lead him out. Not like he had anything better to do today.

end

So, should I continue? Click the box and let me know.


	2. The game begins

So we have part two. I have idea's for the whole game but I don't know how funny they are. Let me know how boring this is, if it is. Any ideas will be accepted.

Intro

"Okay, so how you wanna do this?" Riku asked, removing the game from case and placing it in the concile. "It's a one player game."

"Uh, how far are you in it?" Sora was still tying to wrap his mind around the idea that someone somewhere had made a video game about _him_.

"About halfway. I figured we'd just start a new game." He handed the controller to Sora who took it a bit reluctantly. "You get to be Roxas for the first part."

Sora raised an eye, mildly curious. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's kinda boring but I think they were just trying to let people get familiar with the changes from the last one." Riku dropped down on the floor beside him. "That one had really messed up controls."

The title screen had faded as they talked, leading into a video clip show with an orchestral type song that swelled up toward the end. Sora found himself staring at the screen. "Whoa."

"Yeah, cool lookin', huh? I actually kinda like that song." Riku reached over and hit the X button since it was clear Sora wasn't going to. Selecting new game, he then leaned back and watched Sora as the intro began.

Big blue eyes widened further as they watched the recap of the first Kingdom Hearts. "Wait, that's not how that happened."

"It's condensed up, Sora."

"But you never-"

"I know, I was there too." Riku smacked the back of his head. "They kinda messed up the whole door to darkness thing, too. How they show it is so not what it looked like."

"Whoa, what's this place? Everything's so… white."

"That's Castle Oblivion."

"No wonder the Organization was so messed up. Its looks like a psych ward or something." He paused. "Whoa, that's some pink hair."

"It wasn't really that pink."

Sora flicked his eyes to Riku. "You know some time's I'm glad I don't remember that stuff. It sounds totally insane."

"Oh it was." Riku agreed. "You don't know the half of it."

Sora watched the screen again. "Wait are you trying to kill me or Ansem?"

"Uh, that wasn't me there."

"Whad'ya mean? It looks like you. What, you gonna say you're clone did it?" Sora laughed loudly. When he noticed the look on Riku's face, he stopped suddenly. "You can't be serious. You have a clone?"

"Had one." Riku tilted his head thoughtfully. "Actually, I don't know what happened to it. He could still be wandering out there somewhere."

"Man, I don't even want to touch that one." Sora waved a hand. On the TV, a boy in white and grey was falling head first through water. "Is that Roxas? He totally stole my weird dream!"

"If he's you, then is it really stealing?"

"Yes, well, uh." Sora scratched his head. "I think, maybe. You know what, I don't wanna think about all that weird transcendental crap. He stole my dream and that's that."

He nodded to himself in agreement before starting on the next thing. "Hey, that's our beach!"

"_Our_ beach?" Riku echoed.

"Yeah, what are those guys doing there?" He listen to the conversation which lead into static and partial cutscenes. "Was that Ansem? And who's he talking to? What's he mean true name? And why are these scenes so choppy?"

Riku sighed. "The first guy's me, the other is Roxas. The true name is you and the memories are messed up still cause Namine was still reconnecting them."

"Oh." Sora said as if it all made perfect sense. The static jumps stopped and now there was a bedroom that panned over to a blonde laying in bed. Roxas sat up with a groan. Sora watched this closely and as Roxas opened the window, he turned to Riku. "So, as my memories where put together, he dreamed them?"

"Yeah."

"Ooooh. That explains that."

"Explains what?" Riku looked at him confused.

"Oh, nothing!" Sora replied in a hurry. Eyes returned to the screen and the Usual Spot where Hayner was complaining about Seifer and something being stolen. The group ran off and Roxas suddenly fell over into another flashback. "This is weird. Does it do this the whole time?"

"With Roxas, yeah." Riku frowned at the screen. "I still feel bad for the guy."

Sora glanced over but said nothing. The screen changed and now Roxas was just standing there.

"This is where you play, Sora."

"Oh, got it." He took up the controller. "Let's see if they got Twilight Town right."


	3. Day 1

No idea how far I'm gonna go with this or how much of the game I'll actually do. If I do the whole thing this could go on forever. Any advice or ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Well, let's just see where this goes together, shall we?

"Wait, where am I supposed to be going?"

"You're just wandering around town talking to people. Wait, go over to that stand." Riku instructed.

"Why?" Sora did it even as he questioned. He started a conversation with the shop owner then went to rescue her cat. "Please tell me Roxas does more than running around completing odd jobs for people."

"He does."

"Good. This is really boring so far, Riku." Sora whined, sending Roxas to another part of town. Oh hey, it's that Seifer jerk. I hated that guy. I really wanted to kick his ass and I didn't even know him. Guess I was having a Roxas moment."

"A Roxas moment?" Riku made a face at him.

"Yeah, that what I call them. It sounds better than schizophrenic episode."

"And you have those often enough to name them." Riku sounded worried.

Sora glanced over with an obnoxious grin. "Aww, are you worried I'm gonna leave you and let Roxas take over?"

"No." He said that a little too fast.

"Am I supposed to pick one of these things?" Sora frowned at the tv. "Do each of them do something different?"

"Yeah. It tells you."

Sora picked the magic enhancing one and Riku sputtered. "Why'd you pick that one?"

"Cause I like magic."

"But magic's a pain in the butt to use! You should have gone for defense."

"Why? If you can fight good enough that would be a waste." He looked at his friend. "Do you use that one?"

"Well yeah but only so I don't have to worry so much about it and can focus on the fighting."

"Oh." Sora started fighting Seifer, defeating him quickly. "Well, that was- whoa! What the- That Dusk just came out of no where!"

Riku rolled his eyes. "Don't they usually?"

Sora didn't answer him. He was making Roxas run after the Nobody mumbling, "Stupid Dusk. Get the freak back here. I better not have to chase him all the way to the mansion."

Of course he did and then when he tried to fight the thing, nothing happened. "Why won't it die?"

"You're trying to kill it with a foam bat, Sora. Come on now."

"But then how-" He cut himself off as the Keyblade appeared in Roxas' hand. "Oh. Wait, how the heck did he get the Keyblade?"

"Diz allowed it to him so he could fight of the Dusks. He didn't get to keep it." Just as Riku explained, the weapon left the blonde's hands. It cut to the four friends looking over the stolen pictures.

"Hey, that's the picture you gave me." Sora pointed.

"Where did you think I got it from?" Gods, Sora could be stupid sometimes.

Sora was frowning at the screen. "So, uh, why'd they steal pictures? Oh, it's Diz and… you right?"

"Yeah."

"Hey did you ever notice that Diz sounds a lot like that Saruman guy from those hobbit movies?"

Riku made a face. "No, they sound nothing a like. Now that Dooku guy, he's a pretty close match."

"What?" Sora exclaimed. "Are you kidding me?"

"Whatever. It's time for you to play again and you missed the next batch of memories."

"What? Darn." Sora pouted. "Oh well. On to day two."


	4. Day 2

So the plan is I'll continue this so long as I get reviews, okay? I have a few little interludes planned out and I'm fairly sure I can keep this going through the entire game. Requests are gladly accepted and I'll do my best with them.

I have to give a shout out to for providing the cut scenes in order so I don't have to sit and replay the game piece by piece (this way is a lot faster).

So with that said, Day Three

"What are you stalking him now?"

"I had to keep tabs on him because of the Nobodies. We couldn't let Roxas get taken so I would patrol around to keep them out of town."

"Right, it's just cause you got a thing for spiky-haired blondes." Sora smirked.

"What?" Riku flushed a bit. "No."

"So I have to find a job now?" Sora sent Roxas running past the tram line. "Man, Roxas had a boring life. Couldn't Diz have, I dunno, put in a movie theater or something?"

"I think he was more concerned with keeping the system contained."

"Dude, is that a skateboard? Sweet!" Sora spent the next ten minutes having Roxas jump ledges and nearly run over pedestrians. He laughed as Struggle spectators mysteriously avoided being mowed down.

"How long are you going to do this?"

"What? It's fun."

"It's boring. Would you just go earn some munny now?"

Sora stuck his tongue out at Riku. "Blah, fine."

He sent Roxas to one of the message boards. "Let's see… no. No. Oh this one might be cool. Do I get to use the skateboard?"

"For which?" Riku asked even though Sora had already selected it and was getting instructions. Sora grinned and began rolling around town, slapping up posters. "You realize you're being timed."

"Huh?" Just then he died. "What? Well that's no fair!"

"Most of these are timed. So are some of the boss battles."

"Oh I hate timed fights." Sora whined. "Why'd they do a stupid thing like that? I never had time limits."

"It's a game Sora." Riku patiently reminded him.

"Yeah well it's still dumb." He restarted and managed to finish in time. "Only 10 munny! What a cheapskate!"

"You took too long."

"Ugh! How much did we need again? Like 5000?" Sora frowned in frustration. "Why doesn't Olette just get if from her parents? They're freakin' loaded!"

"They were?"

"Yeah, where do you think all that Sea-salt ice cream came from? Hayner couldn't steal it all the time."

"How do you know all this?" Dumb question, Riku. Sora knows everything Roxas does. Never mind. There's another job board near the tram center."

Sora nodded. Twenty minutes later, Sora had finally collected enough munny to go to the beach. As he headed for the train station, he suddenly looked at Riku. "Wait, since when is there a beach in Twilight Town?"

Riku laughed. "It's taken you this long to figure that out?"

"Well," Sora pouted. He turned back to the screen. The group of friends had gathered and Olette presented the pouch to Roxas. Then they ran into the station, Roxas trailing behind and… "There you are stalking him again. Wait, did you just rob Roxas?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Why?"

"I needed mummy?" Riku spoke sarcastically. "See? That's what Roxas should have done, gone around mugging people."

"You know," Sora tilted his head thoughtfully. "You were really mean to Roxas. No wonder he doesn't like you."

"Huh? Roxas doesn't like me?"

Sora laughed. "He darn near despises you."

"It wasn't personal! It's not like I wanted to do those things! Diz said to get the munny so I did." Riku protested. "Wait a minute and you'll see."

Sure enough there was Riku talking to Diz. After Diz told him to delete the pouch, Riku looked at Sora triumphantly. "You notice I didn't get rid of it like he wanted."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatcha do, go around stealing stuff from Roxas? That's kinda twisted Riku."

"I only took things that would help you!"

"Whatever," Sora half-grinned. "Thief."

He went back to the screen. "Oh, Ariel. She was nice. Having fins was kinda cool. Agh, Phil. He's annoying. I loved the Coliseum. Genie got annoying too sometimes. Oh, Halloweentown was cool. I liked that place. Oh, there's you being a jerk."

Riku frowned. "Yeah…"

Sora waved off the apology that was likely coming. "It's over now. Ah, Neverland. You ever fly? I'll have to take you and Kairi sometime. It's so much fun. Hey, it's Cloud. I wonder if he ever made it back to Hollow- I mean Radiant Garden. Oh there's you again still being an ass."

He laughed. "Man, you were full of yourself."

"Rub it in, why don't you?" Riku muttered.

Sora didn't seem to hear him, continuing his running commentary. "That's that egg thing I was sleeping in. And there's Namine! What's she doing there?"

"Checking up on you." Riku answered. "She did it for me whenever I was stuck doing something for Diz and she could spare the time."

"Aww." Sora batted his eyes. "You checked up on me? How sweet!"

"Shut up." Riku slugged his shoulder.

"Ow." Sora rubbed his arm. "You know I'm kidding."

"Whatever."

"That's Leon's line."

"Yeah that and ……….. ."

"And what?"

"Never mind, it's another video game reference."

"What game?"

"Final Fantasy VIII. It's all about Leon. The other's have one too called Final Fantasy VII."

"They do?" Sora's eyes bugged out. "I wanna see those too."

"Maybe once we get through this. You still have to see Advent Children."

"Okay." Sora returned to the screen. "On to day three."


	5. Day 3

Sorry for the wait. This piece is gonna be one of those when I feel like it types so the updates will be kinda sporadic. The more reviews, the more motivated however (hint, hint).

Some of these will be short, others longer. Some will be great, others okay.

Don't be expecting brilliance here, just mindless fun and hopefully amusement.

So please enjoy and keep those suggestions coming, kay?

"Have I told you how boring this is?"

"About five times."

"You know," Sora commented setting the controller down. "I'm starting to get annoyed with this."

Riku looked at him. "I told you the beginning was dull."

"Yeah but it's been like," he searched for the time. "Three hours and _nothing_ is happening! What does any of this have to do with me? They could have just done another big old cutscene or something."

"You're only complaining because it isn't you."

"No." Sora countered. He went back to the game. "Hey, go get me a soda."

Riku stood and left. While he was gone, Sora moved Roxas. As he did this, he couldn't help feeling rather depressed by what he was seeing. He didn't want Riku to know but playing this part of the game was disturbing him more than annoying him. He murmured. "I'm sorry, Roxas."

"Here." Riku handed a plastic bottle to him. "Where are you now?"

"Goin' to the train station. Whoa! It's Namine. What's she doin' there?"

"She was always jumping in. Drove Diz nuts."

"Okay and she just walks away." Sora tilted his head. "That was totally random."

Riku had to agree on that one. He still didn't get why Namine had kept jumping at random times to see Roxas.

"Oh don't tell me I'm gonna actually help Seifer and his cronies." Sora complained. "He's a total jerk!"

"Did you just say cronies?" Riku blinked.

"Grrr. Stupid foam bat. Where's my Keyblade?" Suddenly Namine called down to use the Keyblade. "Yeah, thanks for the permission."

Then the screen darkened and Roxas was standing in a stain glass mosaic floor. "I've been there! Only it wasn't there cause the picture was different." Three pedestals appeared. "Oh I know what to do!"

This time he picked the sword. "Just for you, Riku."

"oh how sweet." Was the sarcastic reply.

"Now a giant Nobody's gonna come, right?"

"How'd you…?" Riku asked as just that happened.

"Cause in mine it was a giant Heartless." Sora started fighting. Roxas was held by invisible bonds a few times, grunting in a rather annoying manor before finally the creature gave up and dropped him. Then he was swallowed up by darkness and appeared in a white room.

"Is she gonna finally explain what's going on?" Sora asked. "Hey! Why'd you grab her?"

"She wasn't supposed to be talking to him."

"Ha! Roxas knows you're the thief!" Sora laughed. Just as quickly, he frowned. "Wait, what's with the portal behind him?" Then his jaw dropped and he turned on Riku. "You _pushed_ him through a portal?! Couldn't you have just asked him to leave?"

"You think he would have listened?" Riku retorted.

Sora opened his mouth to protest but then realized Riku was right. "Well you still could have been nicer about it."

"Whatever."

"And you send me back to Seifer?" Nice. Some friend you are."

Riku wasn't sure if he should be worrying that Sora was referring to himself as Roxas or not. It was probably nothing. "That's where you were last."

"Oh, yeah." Roxas was back at the Usual Spot now. "Wow, Hayner sounds really upset."

"Well yeah he thinks Roxas ditched him and Roxas didn't really say anything to dispel the idea." Riku explained since Sora wasn't listen to the dialogue. "And he still didn't go to the beach."

"Why didn't they- oh." He caught that answer. He sounded just as upset as Roxas. "Oh, yeah the Struggle things tomorrow! Roxas forgot that? No wonder Hayner's pissed at him."

Static took over the screen. "Restoration at 46" Sora echoed. "That voice is annoying."

It cut to Diz and Riku. "This is when Diz explains what's going on with Namine."

Sora listened intently. "Wait. He wants Namine dead?"

"He figures she already is. Nobodies don't truly exist remember?"

"Oh, right." Sora frowned. "More flashbacks."

He watched himself flying through light streaks, hovering near the ceiling of a room where Kairi was. Then flinched at the next scene. "I forgot how much that hurt."

Riku didn't reply, knowing there was nothing he could say. He'd already apologized repeatedly for his actions on Hollow Bastion and Sora had each time waved it off. They both know it was something neither one of them would ever forget.

They silently sat through the rest of the memory. When it was finished, Sora glanced at Riku. "The guy in the coat."

"Yeah?" Riku had to refocus himself.

"That was Xemnas."

Riku narrowed his eyes. "I wondered who that was when I saw him. You sure?"

"Pretty."

Well, it seemed as good an idea as any of the one's he'd come up with. "You know, Sora. You got some really loyal friends."

Sora cocked his head.

"Donald and Goofy." Riku explained. "Even though it meant defying an order from the King, they dumped me for you."

Sora rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah well…"

"It's cool." Riku quickly said. "It's not like I was very nice to them. I mean, I pretty much banished them from my presence."

"Yeah, Donald was ready to kill you for that. I think he still has a grudge against you for it."

Not like he really cared what a talking duck thought of him. Of course, that was a bit hypocritical of him. He did consider a mouse king as one of his close friends. There was absolutely no difference between the two but for whatever reason he felt his was the better choice in anamorphic animals.

"Well so ends another day." Sora set down the controller stretched his arms behind him. "Not quite as boring but still enough."

"It's not that bad."

"No, it's just." Sora shook his head. "I don't know. I just want to get through it, that's all."

"Only three more days."


	6. Day 4

Next chap will be a bit of a detour. Just a heads up.

"And once again, Roxas rolls out of bed for another boring day." Sora sighed. "This better be over soon."

"You're half way there but it starts getting better now." Riku assured him as Roxas was taken to the sandlot.

"Well, here we are at the Struggle Tournament." Sora frowned. "You mean I have to fight Seifer again?"

"No, Vivi takes him out but you have to fight Hayner."

"What? Why? Who set that up? I don't wanna fight my best friend. I already did that in real life and it totally sucked!"

Riku felt himself frown. He hated being reminded of that. Before Sora could see it however it was gone. "Don't know but that's how it is."

"Great. Fine. OOOH, skateboard." And again Roxas was grinding along the stage and flipping over heads.

"You know, I'm just gonna get you a copy of Tony Hawk's ProSkater. That'll keep your attention for hours."

"What's that?"

"A game. Now are you going to get this over with?"

"Yeah." Roxas left the board and went over for instructions. "Ok, sounds easy enough. Let's go."

He jumped the side and ran over to the guy in charge. The fight got set up and Roxas looked really unhappy. Hayner dismissed his apology and the friends went at it. "Ya' know." Sora commented at he batted at Hayner and collected blue orbs. "Hayner reminds me of you."

"Does he?"

"Yeah. Well, that was easy." Sora listened a moment. "But he's a much better loser than you."

Riku shoved him. "I'm not a poor loser."

"Oh yes you are." Sora didn't continue. He was back on the Struggle tournament. "Whoa, Vivi's kickin' butt."

"Yep and Seifer's pissed."

Seifer lost and Sora grinned. "He totally just got pwned."

"Now he's a sore loser." Riku pointed out after Seifer told Roxas to thrash him.

"True." Sora shook his head quickly. "Okay, what's the deal with Vivi? That laugh is like totally creepy. I don't think I wanna fight him."

"Well you have to." Riku reached over and okayed the fight.

"Hey!"

"Better move." Riku laughed as Sora struggled (literally) against the little blue coated guy.

"Hey that was easy." Sora then paused. "Uh why did everything freeze? Wait, what? He's a freakin' Nobody? How'd that happen?"

He battled the Nobodies quickly still looking confused. When he finished he looked at Riku. "What was that?"

"Just watch."

"But I wanna know- wait there's you again."

"That's not me."

"Huh?" Now Sora was paying attention. "Then who- wait, Axel?"

"Yep."

"But-"

"Watch!"

After a minute, Sora was totally engrossed by the conversation. He stared at chakrams appeared and Roxas threw away the Keyblade only to have it immediately return. Then the blue eyes widened as Roxas readied himself to fight Axel. "No! He's not supposed to fight him! They're friends."

Sora frantically hitting buttons and looking extremely unhappy about it.

"But Roxas doesn't remember that." Riku explained, watching as Sora died. "You have been saving, right?"

"Yeah." Sora set the controller down as the retry screen came up. "This is really upsetting me. They had to go through all this because of me. It isn't fair."

"No one said life was fair, Sora."

"I know but," he sighed. "Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it though."

"Very true."

Sora picked up the controller and restarted the Axel fight, this time actually paying attention to it. He defeated Axel but was still cleared not happy about it. "I really wish that hadn't been necessary."

"I always liked Axel's style." Riku commented. "I kinda wish I could manipulate fire."

"You would." Sora muttered. "Pyro."

"Hey, you and your thunder magic aren't much better."

"Why's Diz there? Whoa! He just totally blocked that!" Sora's jaw dropped. "Cool!"

Riku rolled his eyes.

"They're like both trying to get Roxas's attention." Sora nodded quietly as Roxas shout out his friends' names. It was like he completely understood what Roxas was doing. Then the scene changed and Roxas was still in the middle of the ring but everyone was again moving.

Vivi looked confused and wandered off. Roxas's friends came running up congratulating him. Then there was a girly cry of 'Setzer'. "So uh now I get to fight him, right?"

"Yep."

"Oh, joy." Sora said sarcastically. "Once this day is done, can we go out for food cause I'm starving."

"Yeah. That sounds good."

"Cool. Alright, who's this idiot and what's with purple coat? At least Auron had a reason for not wearing his sleeve." Sora complained. "Hold on, this guy's _asking_ Roxas to throw the fight? Oh, I am sooo kicking his ass! What a total jerk! And he's supposed to be the champion? How in the worlds did that happen? He had to have bribed the judges or something."

Sora managed a steady stream of commentary as he did in fact quickly and decisively kick Setzer's ass.

"And what the heck is he going on about? 'Whatever you think, you're wrong'? What does that have to do with anything? Does this guy have security issues or what?"

He tossed down the controller to chants of 'Roxas'. "Why is he pointing? Man, this guy sucks. Oooh, I get a cool wrestlemania belt!"

Riku rolled his eyes. "I thought that's what it looked like too."

Roxas was tossing crystals to his friends on the clock tower and Sora watched closely. Then Roxas began falling. "Whoa, whoa. What's… hey it's Kairi and Selphie!"

"You know, that school uniform does look pretty good on her." Riku commented.

Sora shot him a dirty look. Riku ignored it.

Sora finally looked back at the screen. "So, seriously, everyone forgot me?"

"In their minds, yeah. I only remembered cause Diz told me about you." And the fact that he went everyday to the pod to see him but Riku didn't dare mention that little bit of information. He wasn't a sap after all.

"Oh." Sora frowned. Now Roxas was falling again and asking Namine questions, only it wasn't her. "So wait, how is he talking to Kairi?"

"Because he's you and she's Namine."

"Oh." Sora clearly didn't get it. "Hey, that's me talking! Whoa she passed out?"

"Well it is kind of an out of body experience."

"Huh. What's she doing now? Oh! It's the letter! The one that made to door to light!" He tilted his head. "She sent it that much earlier?"

"I guess." Riku shrugged. "She just remembered your name."

"Finally." Sora sighed. "And we're back to Diz. Hey you have the crystal!"

"Duh."

Sora watched another minute. "Diz didn't know who you were?"

"Oh he knew." The Riku on screen threw back his hood to reveal Ansem, well Xehanort, and Diz was laughing. "He just wanted to know how I'd answer."

"But if he's really Ansem, why didn't he call you on it?"

"I don't really know. Maybe he figured I needed to sort things out for myself." Riku stared at the screen for a long moment. "I was pretty messed up then."

Sora studied him but then Roxas returned and regained his attention. The blonde had suddenly awoken and was looking confused. As he mused on his dreams, Sora got an oddly sympathetic look. He whispered. "They're not dreams."

Riku watched the other with concern. Somehow, he doubted Sora was referring to the game.

"Alright, Day 5." Sora paused the game. "Time for food."


	7. Break

As warned this is only a quick little interlude. We'll get back to the game next time. I just didn't want anyone to think I'd abandoned this.

Reviews are good

Sora bit into his burger like he hadn't eaten in days. "Humm, so hungry."

Riku shook his head, dunking a chicken finger into sweet and sour sauce. "You know if I ate like you did, I'd weigh a good three hundred pounds."

"Sucks to be you." Sora said around a mouthful.

"Ugh. Mouth closed, Sora."

The brunette chewed thoughtfully for a few minutes. "Ya know, Roxas really wasn't a bad guy."

Riku frowned. "What brought that on?"

"Don't know." Sora picked at some of his fried veggies. "I was just thinking, well, I don't know. Never mind."

Riku would mind. "No, really what, Sora?"

"It's nothing." He moved to grab the ketchup but knocked it over instead. "Darn it."

"It's supposed to go one the fries not the floor, ya?" An accented voice snickered.

"Shut up, Wakka." Sora got up to clean the mess he made.

"Touchy today, huh?" Tidus slid into a seat at the table. Wakka followed.

"Yeah." Riku agreed.

"You guys wanna come with us and play some blitzball?" The blonde stuffed some fries in his mouth. "Some others are playing too."

"Nah, we're busy."

"Doing what?"

"Playing a new video game."

"A game?" Wakka looked stunned. "You rather play that then come out with us."

"It's not just a game." Sora muttered. "It's my freakin' life."

The two stared at him.

Riku laughed weakly and looked at Sora pointedly. "It's just a game, Sora."

Sora suddenly laughed loudly. "Yeah, of course. I just meant…"

"Yeah, I got ya." Tidus drank his shake. "I'm like that with Final Fantasy."

Riku's head snapped toward him. "You play Final Fantasy?"

"Yeah, well working on it. I'm stuck on this one part and it's really ticking me off. I want to find that Vincent guy but Shinra Mansion is just a pain."

Shinra Mansion? "You're playing 7?"

"Yeah. You played it?"

"Uh yeah."

"Man, you have got to come over sometime and help me! I've got Cloud to like a level 30 and Barret and Tifa are around 25. They're the only ones I use. Aerith just bugs me."

Sora was staring open mouthed. He couldn't believe all the familiar names that had just spilled from his friend's mouth. He knew everyone? How was that possible? Unless… "Wait, you were serious?"

Everyone looked at him confused now.

"Cloud and Leon and them all really have games?" Sora felt like he was going to faint. "So that Advent Children thing's real too?"

"Dude, you've seen Advent Children!" Tidus gaped. "I've been wanting to see that but I can only find it in other languages."

"Uh, yeah." Riku flicked his bangs. "I have someone working on subbing it for me."

"You have to let me watch."

"Sure."

"My cousin wants me to play 8." Wakka added. "Says it's the best one, mon"

"No, Tidus shook his head vigorously. "Seven all the way. Cloud totally kicks Squall's ass."

"But they're friends." Sora protested.

"What?" Tidus turned to him.

"They're talking about two different games, Sora." Riku spoke rather sternly, trying desperately to make Sora shut up.

"But-"

"You've never seen them, Sora."

"Yes I have!" Sora jumped up disrupting the table and startling the other two. "I know them better than you!"

"You've played Final Fantasy?" Tidus looked impressed. "You have to actually read those."

Riku's eyes pleaded with Sora to stop. If he kept talking, their friends would think he'd gone insane.

Sora finally got what Riku was doing. He sat down, folded his arms and pouted. He mumbled a no at Tidus.

"Hey, guys, we gotta get going." Riku gathered up their garbage. "I have to check in with my mom before going back to Sora's."

"Okay." They were still looking at Sora oddly. "Well, if you get bored, we'll be out there all day."

"Got it. Come on, Sor."

As soon as they left the eatery, Sora was on Riku. "What was that about?"

"What?"

"Now I look like a total idiot."

"Sora, relax."

"Ugh! If everyone already knows about this stuff, why can't we talk about it? Obviously, someone did."

"Because if we start talking about this stuff like it's real, we'll get committed. You know that. Everything's a game to them."

"Whatever. Let's just go." Sora walked ahead. "I wanna see what happened to Roxas."


	8. Day 5

Expect longer waits on this one than with my other usual stuff. This one's a but more involved (like having to go through the game for each bit).

I hope it's still fun. That's the over all goal with some serious bits thrown in. I want it to be like they're really playing through and it's forcing them to think about things.

I thank everyone who's faving and watching this. Please keep the reviews coming.

Sora flopped down on the floor. His head almost hit the rug but he stopped himself. "Ugh. What are we doing now?"

"Literally or game wise?" Riku settled himself in the chair.

"Game. Do I show up yet?"

"Not for two more days. Roxas and the gang are going exploring today."

"Oh, joy." Sora sat up and switched on the t.v. The controller was in his hands before the picture snapped on.

Olette stood before Roxas looking annoyed. "What's her problem?"

Hayner went on about summer ending and not wanting to do homework. Olette complained and Hayner gave in. "You know, she had those guys totally wrapped around her finger. I mean, jeez, she pouts and they just do whatever she wants."

Riku wanted to say that Sora pulled the same crap but didn't.

_Yesterday, I fell off the station tower, didn't I?_ "Did they actually see that? Oh." Sora frowned. "Man, Roxas has got to think he's losing his mind."

"Well, he kinda was." Riku noted. "I find it amusing that Roxas wants to do a paper about his dreams and all the weird stuff he's experiencing."

"How is that amusing?" Sora looked at him with a scrunched up face.

"Because to do that would require like advanced psychology classes and stuff. Even I wouldn't be able to write a decent paper explaining all that. Plus, they hand in that to the teacher and either they all fail for making crap up or Roxas gets committed."

"That isn't funny." Sora muttered, turning back to the screen. Roxas had just left to get ice cream. Sora seemed rather irritated. "So what are they going to do?"

Riku frowned. "Search the town for strange occurrences."

"That sounds exciting." The brunette rolled his eyes. He whipped through the written conversation. "So, wait there are seven wonders in Twilight Town? Why would Diz waste time on that?"

"Most of them were program glitches. A few were caused by the Nobodies and one was just a jerk who thought he was being funny."

"What?"

"You'll see."

The gang got on board the train to head over to the Terrence. "Okay, why the hell did they all just whip out their stones? That makes no sense! Was Diz trying to make Roxas feel alienated?"

Riku glanced at him. "What makes you think Diz-"

"Because he controlled everything in that town, right? He didn't like Roxas and so now he's just being mean and tying to isolate him." Sora snapped out. "Diz is an ass."

Riku's eyes widened. Okay, that statement was so not Sora. Maybe playing this game was a bad idea. "I wouldn't go that far, Sora."

He sighed. "I guess not but… whatever. We're here."

Hayner and Olette ran ahead while Roxas and Pence paused at the stairs. "So what's the deal with the stairs?"

Sora waited a moment before his jaw dropped. "What? He took something Rai said seriously? Pence, you idiot. Tell me the wonders get better than this."

"Not really."

"Great." And so Roxas wandered, finding a wall with a seemingly endless supply of energy balls shooting from it. After twenty minutes of not getting even close to the source, Sora thrust the controller at Riku. "You freakin' do this. It's impossible."

Riku smirked and in less than a minute handed it back to him.

"How the heck did you do that?" Sora gaped.

"I got mad skills, yo."

Sora rolled his eyes.

"There's a pattern to it."

Sora shrugged. He next found a waterfall with Roxas' shadow in it. When the shadow emerged, Sora almost jumped. "I have to fight Anti-Roxas! You didn't do that did you?"

"What? Fight him? I had to-"

"No!" Sora cut him off. "You didn't make it, did you?"

"No, why would you even think that?"

"Uh, Neverland ring a bell? Mr. 'I've learned a few tricks, have fun kicking your own ass'. That was just disturbing as all hell." Sora clarified as he battled the shadow Roxas.

"Oh," Riku stared at the floor guiltily. "Yeah, that."

A hand shoved his shoulder. "Knock it off, emo boy."

"I'm not emo."

"Not at all. You never talk about how you live in a dark abyss or wear black or write poetry about how hopeless everything is and how worthless you are."

"I don't write poetry about how hopeless everything is." The older teen protested.

"But you do everything else." Sora smirked. He was already finished the multi-Vivi fight. "And why the heck do the Nobodies like using Vivi so much? Is it cause he looks weird or what?"

Riku shrugged moodily.

"Oh, get over it, Riku. You know I'm kidding." Roxas was running up a road. He came across a large bag and some rocks. "This looks easy." He jumped on the bag a few times before a dog was released. "What? Someone tied up that poor dog? That's just cruel!"

"Yeah, told you. Some asshole."

"So that's five. Those all sucked." Sora grabbed his drink and took a sip.

"The next is all right."

"I hope so. Where is it?"

"Go to the station."

Sora did so and Pence and Roxas began talking. Then Hayner and Olette returned and they went on about a ghost train. Then they all ran off to Sunset Hill. "A ghost train, huh? How does that work?"

Pence went on a mock creepy description and Sora rolled his eye yet again. "These guys really have no lives."

"Literally." Riku couldn't help but mutter.

"So we're waiting." Sora bobbed his head a little. "Why are they going on about the beach again? Jeez, you didn't get to go cause it don't exist!" He shouted at the screen. "Get over it!"

Riku snorted at the animated display.

"Oh great, Seifer's here to piss us off." Sora threw a hand up. "Why didn't I kill him?"

"Cause you don't kill people."

"Right. Well for him I'd make an exception." Sora tilted his head thoughtfully. "You know, I never noticed before but he has like the exact same scar as Leon. Weird, huh?"

"Uh, yeah." Riku agreed slowly. He wasn't about to get into the whole Seifer wasn't Seifer but was Seifer only different and was rivals with Leon back when he was Squall explanation. He still confused himself with that one.

"Ooh, do I get to fight him? What? No don't walk off! Damnit." Sora pouted. "Wait, what's tomorrow? Hey, it's the train that goes to Yen Sid's! That's the ghost train?"

"Yep."

"Why do they look confused?"

"Roxas is the only one who could see it."

"Huh? Why?" Sora pointed. "But they're at the station and there it is and, wait, what? It's gone!" The regular train pulled up then. "What the heck? Why can Roxas see the train but no one else? Now they really think he's crazy!"

"It will be explained."

The group walked from the station and complained some more about their homework before Roxas asked about the seventh wonder. Hayner waved it off but Pence explained it was the mansion outside of town.

"Oh! Is this where I finally-"

"No."

"Darn. So what's the story?" Roxas stood alone outside the gates and was startled by Pence. He explained the legend and Roxas looked up at the big window. It cut to the inside of a room with pictures all over.

Then Namine began speaking, detailing the pictures and how Axel was Roxas' best friend which Roxas didn't believe. They had a rather transcendental conversation which Sora was completely taken by. He listened to Namine with rapt attention.

When she was done and it returned to the outside, Sora shook his head. "I still don't get any of that mess. And I can't believe she just flat out says he never should have existed. That's just cruel."

"It was." Riku agreed. Even if it was true, she didn't have to say it.

Roxas and Pence met up with Olette who had preemptively finished the paper for everyone. Then they all went to the station to find Hayner. "You know he's kind of a punk, isn't he?"

"Yep." The group was laughing with the exception of Roxas who simply looked pensive. "I didn't like him much."

"Speaking of you." Sora noted. Diz was sitting in a chair before a broken table and 'Ansem' was walking up to him. "So, Diz let Roxas see the train cause he couldn't go to the beach? That's kinda weird."

"I thought so too."

"Oh, good you're beginning to remember me."

"I never really totally forgot you. It was just, hazy." Riku corrected.

Sora listened to more conversation. "What does he want revenge for? Whoa, he wants to kill Namine? Why?"

"Diz didn't believe Nobodies should be kept around, especially the free thinking one's. He figured it was dangerous for Namine to stick around."

"Did he just order you to kill her?"

"Yeah." Riku stood up. "You'll notice that I didn't."

"And I'm glad for that. I don't like hearing about you hurting anyone."

The silver haired boy bit his lip but only turned. "I'm getting some water."

"Okay." Sora was focused on the new batch of memories that had started. By the time Riku returned, they were over. The younger teen glanced over his shoulder. "You left on purpose, didn't you?"

"Huh?"

"You knew what memories were coming up and you didn't want to see them." Sora said accusingly. "I thought you were finally okay with everything."

"I'll never be okay with it, Sora." Riku sat on the sofa. "I just live with it."

Sora frowned but turned back to the now paused screen. He unpaused it. "This is where we go to Castle Oblivion, right? That's why it's all staticy."

"Yeah. That's where the original memory ends and the castle stuff was removed."

"I still have a huge gap in my memory." Sora muttered. "I really wished I didn't."

"It was what you chose. It was that or never recover the old one's." Riku explained.

"I know, both you and King Mickey explained that before. Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"True." Riku conceded.

"Is this Roxas' memories kicking in now?"

"Yes. Those would be the next ones after the gap because those are what happened after."

"What's happening?" Sora watched a moment. "You helped him fight the Heartless?"

"For a bit. Then we fought." Riku was staring now too.

"You didn't know who he was, did you?"

"Not at first, no. Diz told me after the first time I fought him. Needless to say, once I knew I was more properly motivated."

"Did you hate Roxas?" There was and odd tone to Sora's voice. He had paused the game again and turned.

"No. I was indifferent to him. If I wanted you back, he had to go. That was it." Riku stated simply. "It sounds terrible but that's just how I had to deal with it."

"Oh." Sora stared at the floor for a second. He turned back to the game.


	9. Day 6

Hey everyone. Sorry about the wait but I did say this was a side project of mine. Unfortunately, this chapter isn't _nearly_ as fun as the others but, well, I can't see the two being able to poke too much fun at this part. The humor will be back next chap, definitely.

Thanks to all of you still with me on this.

"Picking up now, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Sora watched Roxas wake up yet again. His eyes shot open. "Whoa! Okay, that's _really_ weird. Why is he all morphy?"

"I think it's just to symbolize that you're almost ready."

Sora nodded. "Roxas is always the last to arrive. Hey, what the- Why can't they- Dude! They just ran through him like he was nothing!"

"Technically he is." Riku snickered.

"Not funny, Riku!" Sora paused the game and turned angrily on his friend. Something in those blue eyes was different.

"Okay, okay." The silver-haired teen put up both hands defensively. He was suddenly reminded strongly of Roxas and that did not sit well with him. "Roxas was being removed from the program at that point. This is the day you wake up."

"Oh." Sora flicked his eyes away. "I see."

He went back to the game. "He's being erased." There was definite sadness in his voice. "Wait, you gave me that picture and Roxas was in it."

"It was a different picture." Riku rolled his eyes. Man, this whole thing was way more complicated than it should be. "The one he's holding now is technically the real one. The one I gave you is the data created one."

Sora shook his head. "This whole thing is a convoluted mess. I don't want to know anymore. It hurts my head."

"Same here. I didn't ask questions."

"So where's he gonna go?" Sora asked almost himself. A few Dusks appeared and Sora noticeably straighten. "Oh, please don't tell me…"

Axel showed up and Sora sighed heavily. "I don't want to fight him! Oh Roxas finally remembers him. Maybe…"

He trailed off. "Oh, I see. I feel so bad for Axel. Xemnas was cruel to make him do all this."

Riku whole heartedly agreed.

"They shouldn't be fighting. Ax should be helping him understand all of this." Sora was quickly hitting buttons.

"Ax?" Riku quirked an eyebrow.

"He froze. Why?" Diz's voice rang out and if possible Sora looked more upset. "Oh this is when… yeah."

Axel unfroze and hung his head in defeat and reluctant acceptance. "No, don't do that." Sora muttered, his voice a bit choked.

Roxas ran to the mansion as instructed and at the locked gate was rapidly surrounded by Dusks. _Don't call me then lock me out._ "If I had, there it is. Of course, they'll just follow me in now."

One dusk moved to do just that when a portal appeared and a black coat materialized. "Now who's- oh it's you. Soul Eater gives you away."

"Well someone had to keep them out."

Roxas stood in Namine's room, glancing around. Once again, he held Sora's rapt attention. He walked around a bit, looking at the drawings on the walls. One caught his attention and triggered another memory.

The blonde Nobody marched determinedly down a dark street and passed Axel as if he wasn't even there. It wasn't until Axel spoke that Roxas turned. Sora stared. "That was the wrong thing to say, Ax. You weren't going to make him stay that way."

Riku paid close attention to Sora. He wanted to ask what was going through his mind as he played this. More than that he wanted to ask what he felt but it would wait. He'd ask about all that once the Twilight Town stuff was finished.

The scene returned to the white room and Namine calmly further explained Nobodies and the Organization. Then she brought up Kingdom Hearts and Roxas chuckled uneasily. And just as she was about to answer Roxas' reluctant question, she digitized and disappeared, Diz taking her place.

"I'm really starting to hate him." Sora spit out.

"That you or Roxas talking?"

"Oh, Roxas _loathes_ him. I hate him." Sora didn't hate anyone. Then again, Diz was rather harsh. "I can't believe you went along with all this."

Riku sighed. "Sora, I-"

"Quiet." Ansem and Namine had both appeared in the room, Namine shouting reassurances to Roxas. Diz grabbed hold of her and when Roxas tried to run to her, Ansem got in the way. "Hey! Why did you stop him?"

"We couldn't risk Roxas backing out now. If she said anymore…" Riku trailed off. Just why had he let Diz treat Namine so badly? Yes she was interfering sometimes but that didn't give reason for all the negative treatment.

Diz took Namine away, Ansem disappearing along with them. Sora almost automatically moved Roxas through the halls. "You're both jerks, you know that?"

"Sora-"

"Just don't talk unless I ask, okay?" The brunette snapped.

Roxas entered the library and walked up to the table. He completed the emblem on it and ran as the floor suddenly began changing, only to disappear entirely. Stairs were revealed and Roxas went down into the computer room.

He looked at the many screens and another memory was triggered, this one being of the Organization's meeting room and the completion of Roxas' capture by Riku. "Is this when you…?"

"Yeah." Riku answered slowly. "That's when it happened."

Sora was silent for a moment. "I still can't believe you did that just to get me back."

"I would have died if necessary." Riku found himself saying. "You are far more important to the worlds than me."

"That isn't true." He said nothing further.

Roxas was unconscious in a chamber. Diz was so callous in his explanation of what was going to happen to Roxas. As if it Roxas' fate was completely irrelevant. At least Riku was showing some concern. Roxas was digitized away into the virtual world and the game returned to present day Roxas.

He straighten and glared at the computer. In a fit of rage, he summoned the Keyblade completely on his own and started hacking the computer to bits. "Oh, so that's what happened to it."

Sora grinned wickedly. "Nice job he did there."

Riku totally agreed. Roxas had every right to be pissed.

Another door opened and Sora took Roxas through it. Several Nobodies dropped from the ceiling. As he fought them, Sora was clearly agitated. "I'm gonna have to fight Axel again, aren't I? And this time he's gonna really try to hurt me."

Riku wasn't sure if Sora really wanted an answer.

Sure enough, Axel arrived and spoke mockingly to him. Sora bit his lip as the confrontation began. "Roxas has two Keyblades."

"Yeah. At full strength, he always does." Riku explained. "Never knew exactly why."

"This is wrong." Sora muttered as he battled the fire wielder. He was almost crying. "So very, very wrong. Friends shouldn't have to fight like this."

"We did." Riku spoke gently.

"And that was wrong, too! It shouldn't have come to that!" Axel was finally defeated. "It's just wrong."

Suddenly the end of Roxas leaving played out. As Roxas walked away and Axel muttered _I would_, Sora did start crying. "That's what he should have said in the first place! If he had Roxas would have stayed!"

Riku really didn't want to bring this up, seeing how upset Sora already was. "But, Sora, if he hadn't left you never would have come back. You're alive because he left."

"I know." Sora's voice wavered. "I know that but that doesn't make any of this easier. There had to be another way. There just had to be."

Roxas was looking at Axel now with full recognition. They promised to meet again in the next life and Axel faded out in a whirl of black. Roxas stood there for a moment before continuing.

Sora wiped at his face and blew out a breath. "Well, at least that out of the way. That was the worst of it, right." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

Roxas walked up to a row of small pods and took a closer look. There was a slight tone of awe in his voice as he recognized Donald and Goofy. Then he went through the last door.

Sora knew this room. He paused and dropped the controller. He got to his feet and stretched. "I'm getting another water."

Riku watched him leave, a tight frown marring his features. For whatever reason, he hadn't been prepared for how deeply all this Roxas stuff was affecting Sora. He should have seen it but he didn't. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

"You know, Roxas hated water." Sora returned and dropped into his previous position. "And the only dessert he'd eat was ice cream."

"You remember all that?"

"I don't remember. I know." Sora shrugged. "Maybe it's wrong of me but I refuse to let part of me just die. I want to know myself and to do that, I have to know Roxas too."

He turned back to face Riku. "I'm glad I'm playing this even though it's hurting like hell."

The older one bit his lip but nodded. "I'm glad you're keeping Roxas with you."

Sora smirked and he was absolutely reminded of Roxas. "Aww, The big meanie who beat me up actually cares a little."

"Yeah well you kicked my ass first."

He laughed and retook the controller. "All right. Let's get this finished."

Diz stood before the lotus-like chamber, looking all imposing. Sora snorted. "He really was full of himself."

"Well he had been the ruler of Radiant Garden."

"Oh, yeah." Diz started talking and Sora again turned to Riku, thoughtful expression on his face. "You know, if all of them knew by then that you were the one the Keyblade was supposed to go to, why did everyone still call me the chosen one?"

"Because the Keyblade still chose you." Riku explained easily. He had put a lot of thought into this one. "It chose you to replace me and then later it chose to return to you. It knew with whom it belonged. Now pay attention."

Sora whirled around as Diz finally explained his goals in all of this. "So what, he only wanted me back so he could use me?"

"All he cared about at that point was revenge. I refused to help him so he turned his sights on you. If he could make your actions serve his purpose, great."

"Okay, now I _really_ don't like him." Roxas yelled at Diz and brought forth the Keyblade. "Oh tell me I get to fight him!"

The weapon went right through Diz. "What the… No! Ugh! What the… I'm screaming to, Rox! I'm right there with you. Stupid…" Sora went on animatedly.

Diz disappeared only to reappear behind Roxas a moment later. "Oh now he's just toying with me, the jerk."

_I hate you so much._ "Damn right you should!"

"He disses you here." Riku noted.

"What?" Sora stared in disbelief. "Too nice? I'm too nice? No one's ever said I'm too nice!"

_But we all think it._ Riku spoke to himself.

"Now where'd he go, oh its opening." Sora breathed. "It's, it's me."

He watched silently as Roxas spoke with total resignation in his voice. The scene pulled back the title appeared. Sora paused the game and sat there for a minute.

"You okay?" Riku asked softly.

"Yeah. That was just… I don't know." Sora set down the controller. "Can we stop here for a while?"

"Whatever you want. You're the one playing."

The boy nodded. He climbed to his feet. "Let's go buy some ice cream. I have the sudden urge for it."

"Sure."


	10. Sora's awakening and Yen Sid

After much internal debate, I am continuing with this. I was hesitant due to an… issue that arose but I am hoping it has been resolved. I thank all of those who notified and assisted me with said problem.

It means a lot that there are people looking out for my work.

Now, we all understand that though I don't own Kingdom Hearts or their respective characters, the idea is mine, correct?

Good. Have fun, guys.

Sora remained uncharacteristically quiet the entire trip to the ice cream shop and back. Riku wanted to say something but he didn't know what. Actually, he doubted any words would actually help so he simply walked beside Sora.

At the house, Sora resumed his spot on the floor slowly licking at his cone still lost in thought.

Riku watched him a moment, debating if he wanted to say anything. There was a question he really wanted to ask, a few questions actually. He had no idea if Sora would answer at this point. In the end, he decided it was worth the try.

"Hey, Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you still feel Roxas?"

Sora continued with his ice cream. After a moment, he casually commented. "That's a really dumb question, Riku."

He didn't think so.

Sora sighed. "He's still here in me only now he is me. I can't explain it but I know there are things I say and do and feel that are him, not me. I told you I can't simply make him go away."

Riku nodded, not quite getting it.

"And he doesn't hate you." Sora smiled over his shoulder. "Actually, he rather admired you."

"He did?" Riku asked skeptically.

"Yep. He can't believe anyone would make themselves that ugly for little old me." Sora grinned, somehow dodging the pillow thrown at him. "So, back to the game?"

"If you want." Riku shrugged.

"Okay." He scooped up the controller and unpaused. "Why are we at the train station? Oh, it's _that _train. So that's when King Mickey got there."

Sora nodded to himself. Roxas called his name, followed by Donald and Goofy. "And now I wake up. You know, that egg thing was really weird. And man, was I stiff! It felt like I hadn't moved in like a year."

"Close to it." Riku commented.

Sora turned his head with a dumb look. "Oh, yeah it was, wasn't it? I'm such an idiot."

"And the prancing around in a circle there proves it." Riku smirked.

"Hey! I was really happy to see them!"

"Least you didn't cry. I'd feel pretty unimportant if you had."

Sora frowned in embarrassment. "Yeah, well… that was different."

He quickly turned back to the game. Jiminy Cricket was on his shoulder and the little group was discussing what had happened to them. Then they left to find out where they were. "I didn't realize just how bad I looked. No wonder Olette kept snickering at me. Those clothes really were small on me."

Hayner, Pence, and Olette introduced themselves and when the girl asked about homework, Sora dropped the controller. "Dude! That just totally reminded me I still have to do my chemistry."

"You can copy mine."

Sora threw his head back and smiled upside down at his best friend. "I love you. Really I do."

"Knock it off and watch the game."

Pence was talking about someone looking for them. "You know, I really thought he was talking about you until he mentioned the ears. I was hoping it was you. Not that seeing Mickey was a bad thing but you know…"

They headed for the train station and it's deceptively empty courtyard. The Dusks appeared and Sora actually jumped. "Whoa! I knew that was coming and they still freaked me out. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack the first time I saw those. They're just so creepy looking, all… dancey or whatever."

He hit a bunch of buttons, still talking. "And then they were so freakin' hard! And they just kept coming! See? I just couldn't keep up! I have never been as glad to see Mickey as I was then."

"You were just out of practice."

"I still had to remember everything. I was going on pure instinct." Mickey dropped down and told them to board the train. "You know the ears totally give him away."

Riku laughed. "I told him that! He just shrugged and jokingly said he'd start manufacturing hats with large ears and sell them throughout the kingdom. Then he'd blend in just fine."

"I want a pair of Mickey ears. Those would be cool."

"Dork."

"Emo."

"I'm not-"

"Hey! See, see?" Sora suddenly pointed at the screen. "The first thing I wanted to do was find you!"

"Yeah." Riku smiled a little. "You just got a bit sidetracked, what with the Organization and all that."

"Exactly." Sora confirmed, not catching the sarcasm in Riku's voice. "Finding you really was my number one goal."

"The three of you are so weird." Riku shook his head, watching Sora, Donald, and Goofy interact. "At least you amused each other."

"Wouldn't have made it without them."

The three headed toward the train, Hayner, Pence and Olette appearing seemingly out of nowhere. Sora watched all this with a slight frown on his face. It was a very awkward scene and Sora found he really didn't have anything to say at the moment.

"You can go straight to the train if you want." Riku spoke quietly.

"Huh?" Sora blinked, not realizing control had gone back to him. "Oh, yeah." He moved himself. "I'm still a bit confused. Am I in the real or fake Twilight Town here?"

"The real. When I gave you that stuff later, that took you to the fake." Riku explained. "It'll make sense when you get there."

"If you say so." He talked to Donald and moved to board the train. "I was really sad leaving those guys. Roxas really cared about them."

"I know. They weren't happy to see you go, either."

"And to think none of us consciously knew the other." Sora paused. "I still have that jewel."

Riku believed it. He had held on to a few things himself even though Mickey had told them to discard of every physical reminder. "But you freaked when things started disappearing behind you."

"Yeah." Sora laughed. "Especially when the train disappeared. I thought we were screwed then."

The train did just that and he began fighting some heartless scattered about the little island, opening a few chests in the process. Then he headed for the door.

"Pete's such an idiot." Sora complained, waiting for the conversation with the giant dog-cat thing to end.

"More like a tool."

"Though it was fun telling him about Maleficent."

"Tells you just how highly she regarded him that she sent him as far away as possible and then never bothered to contact him again." Riku noted with amusement. "She used to refer to him as the sniveling idiot."

"Did she really?" Sora grinned.

"Oh she couldn't stand him. Hated him more than Captain Hook and she despised him." Riku laughed. "Course everyone hated Hook. I loved being able to order him around."

"Did they all have to listen to you?"

"Toward the end they did."

Sora made a noise that Riku couldn't decipher. The conversation on screen finally ended and a short battle ensued before there was another conversation introducing Yen Sid as occupant of the tower. Donald ran off, followed by Sora and Goofy after Goofy explained who Yen Sid was.

They ran up a winding staircase, fighting Heartless before becoming sealed in a room where they had to fight more. The second time this happened, Sora frowned. "You know, I really was upset that after everything we had done, the Heartless were still running around. All I wanted was to go home."

"I know."

The little group approached the old magician and he began explaining things to Sora before telling him to read an old book. As Sora ran through the pages, he slowly straightened. Some thought was obviously forming in his mind.

"That book," he said slowly. "It was totally talking about you!"

"What?" Riku scrunched his face.

"Yeah." He went back to the first page. "Okay, read all of it carefully. It's talking about you!"

Riku did as instructed. "Well, I guess it could be…"

"There's no could be! It's you!" Sora spoke firmly. "If I had realized that before I might have saved myself some heartache."

He left the book and moved to have Yen Sid again start talking, explaining the continued presence of the Heartless and the newly arrived Nobodies. He went on to detail the Organization. "You know maybe it's just me but a lot of that was rather redundant. He didn't talk nearly this much then."

"This is all for the benefit of people who didn't play the first game and I know he did go into the Nobodies and the Organization because those were his instructions."

"You've met Yen Sid?" Sora looked at Riku in disbelief.

"No but he was one of the subjects of my last conversation with the King."

"Oh." Sora returned to the screen. "Oh, man, that was totally embarrassing! This creepy old guy commenting on my clothes being too small. For a minute I was worried he was a pervert or something."

"It was kinda hard not to notice Sora."

Sora ignored the comment. "Whoa wait." He paused the game. Holding up a hand he ticked off his fingers, "Me, you, the King, Donald, and Goofy. That's five. Where the heck did I get six from?"

"That's what I wondered when I was playing this. I was like did he forget how to count?" Riku shook his head. "I think you're supposed to be subconsciously including Roxas but I don't know."

Sora pursed his lips. "Yeah, I guess." He shook his off. "Whatever. Let's get some new clothes."

He walked up to the three good fairies, talked for a bit then okayed the new clothing. A cutscene started and he literally tossed the controller up. "They were just talking to me! Why are they now all like 'oh look who's here'?"

"I love how all they do is change the colors repeatedly until you yell at them." Riku snorted. "And pink really is your color."

"Oh shut up! Hey, that's Maleficent's bird!" Sora pointed. "That's how she knew!"

The fairies finally got it together and transformed Sora's clothed, followed by giving him a glowing ball which enabled his drive forms. "Those are so freakin' sweet. I'm using them like all the time!"

"You have to be careful cause later on if you've been using them too much, you'll go into Anti-form if you try." The older one advised.

"What?" Sora whirled on him. "Are you kidding?"

"Nope."

"That has got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard." He grumbled going back to the game. "So, now back to Yen Sid?"

He didn't wait for Riku's answer. He found the old wizard and approached him, the gummi ship appearing through the outside window. As he spoke, Sora looked over his shoulder. "Hey, Riku, you ever been on a gummi ship?"

"Oh hell no! Those things scare me." Silver hair fell into his eyes and he flicked it back. "I'll stick to my corridors, thank you."

"Those scare me." The brunette muttered. He sighed and returned to his position. "Though opening all those gates was a pain in the butt."

"I believe it."

"And he simply disappears." Sora stated unnecessarily. "Off we go and, huh? It's a big black… oh! That stupid crow brought Maleficent's robe. Why?"

"There's power in memories."

"Huh?" The fairies were panicking about returning memories and as they left to talk to Yen Sid, the robes began filling out. "That's how she came back? I don't get it."

"As long as the memory of her survived, she survived." Riku casually explained. "Sephiroth tries to do the same thing in Advent Children."

"I still haven't seen that." Sora almost sang in a mocking tone.

"You will." Riku shot back.

"If you say so." He clearly still didn't believe the movie existed. "So we're on the gummi ship and Twilight Town disappears. You know, it helps a little when you already have an idea where things are going."

"Yep." Riku glanced outside. "It's starting to get dark."

"Huh?" Sora looked out." Wow. We've been doing this all day."

"And you're maybe a third of the way through."

"Wow. I can't save here, can I?"

"Nope."

"Damn. If I'm not home for dinner, Mom will kill me."

"Just leave it on. Can you come over after dinner?"

"Probably but only for a little while. I can tell I need help with my homework."

"Fine. Then we'll play though to the next save point."

"Got it." Sora set the controller beside the console. "Hey, you wanna come over for dinner?"

Riku shrugged. "Mom and Dad won't be home till late."

"So let's go then."


	11. Hollow Bastion 1

Wow, guys. I had no idea it's been this long. Sorry about that though I did say this was a side project. I promise it won't be so long for the next bit.

--0—0—0—0—0--

Sora had to beg his mom for nearly fifteen minutes before she agreed to let him go back to Riku's. He had to promise to get his homework completely finished and be back home by ten. As they walked to the other's house, Sora kept giving Riku pleading looks.

"I'm not doing it for you."

"Oh come on! It'll be easy for you. You're like a freakin' genius and you've done it already."

"It's _your_ homework, Sora." Riku wanted to laugh. The younger one was so totally hooked to the game now. "I told you before, we play until the next save point. That's it. I have homework too, you know."

Sora sighed. "Fine."

They walked into the house, Sora tossing his backpack on a chair. Riku shook his head and began digging in his satchel for his Literature book. Once removed, he settled himself on the sofa and began flipping pages.

The brunette threw himself down on the floor after turning the television back on. "So off to Radiant- I mean, Hollow Bastion? You know that is kinda confusing."

"Yes it is."

"Wow, Goofy's the master of the obvious, isn't he?" Sora commented at the doglike creatures fighting comment.

"Hey, you were asleep for a year. It's not like the three of you really know the status of things." Riku didn't look up from his book.

"You realize you just defended Goofy."

"I like Goofy. Donald's the irritating one."

"Yeah, he kinda is." Sora agreed. He ran himself through the streets. Abruptly he stopped and cylinders of light began popping up randomly. "You know, the town defense mechanism was the most pointless, stupid thing in the worlds. It never worked and didn't keep the Heartless out."

"I noticed that." Riku muttered absently. "And there was no logic to its placement. It should have encircled the town not be scattered randomly within it. If the Heartless are already within the city walls, it's game over for the people."

"Well, they weren't totally defenseless." Sora disagreed. When the older one said nothing, he returned to the game. "It's Yuffie!"

"Notice she does absolutely nothing to help you, either. Nice friend."

"Well, uh." Sora fought off the group of Nobodies. "Hey, you know you're right! She did just stand there and watch! What the heck? She coulda jumped down and helped."

"And now she acts like she was making sure you could still fight."

"Ooh, if I see her again…" Sora frowned. "What a sec, why am I asking her about you and the King? None of them ever met you. How would they know who you are?"

Riku made a noise but Sora didn't get the chance to ask about it. "Oh, my Leon impersonation is way better than that! I don't like the guy they got playing me."

"Who would you prefer?"

"I don't know." Sora thought for a minute. "Oh, that guy from those hobbit movies! The tall guy."

"Aragorn?"

"Yeah, him."

Riku snorted. "He doesn't sound anything like you!"

"So, it'd still be cool."

Shaking his head, Riku flicked a few fingers toward the screen. "Go follow Yuffie."

The younger did as told and after a minute entered a large wooden door. Once the initial pleasantries were over, Sora frowned. "Is Leon's voice really that nasally?"

"You spent more time with him than I did."

"Yeah and he doesn't sound like that. This Leon is kinda annoying."

"I can't stand Aerith's voice." Riku commented. "It just drones on with no inflection or anything. She's like a robot or something."

"Oh, Cid's being kinda scary now. He wouldn't do that. He'd just say to fucking do whatever without even looking at us."

"I can't believe you just swore."

Sora shrugged a little in embarrassment. "Well it's Cid. You kinda have to say it like that."

Riku raised a silver eyebrow but did not say anything.

"Oh, jeeze!" Brown spikes bounced a bit along with their owner. "I hate when Merlin does that! He just pops up and begins talking like he's been there the whole time!"

Having never met the wizard, Riku didn't really have an opinion. Well, actually he had a lot of comments to make about all of these random people Sora had met along the way but wisely kept him mouth shut on most of them. "So do you still have that card?"

"Card? Oh! Yeah." He paused the game and jumped up, digging around in his oversized pockets. He pulled out his wallet and opened it up.

"Do not tell me you carry it around with you."

"Well of course I do!" Sora stated as if Riku should have already understood this. He removed a small rectangle from the wallet and held it out to Riku. "See? I'm a card-carrying member."

The older boy took it and looked it over. "Leon has really girlish handwriting."

"He didn't write it!" Sora snatched the card back. "Aerith did. He just told her to made one for me cause he likes me."

"I've read that in a few places."

"Huh?" Sora cocked his head in confusion.

"Nothing." He was not about to try explaining fan fiction to the boy. It would completely freak him out in not traumatize him for life if he heard about some of the things Riku had read and seen. "Hurry up with the game."

"You don't really wanna do homework instead of this, do you?" Sora whined.

"Well unlike you I don't have a career as hero of worlds to fall back on if I fail out of school." There was a trace of bitterness in his voice.

Sora turned to face him. "Riku…"

"Play the game, Sora."

With a deep frown he turned back. He took himself through town and met up with Leon. The group looked out at the canyon surrounding the castle, which was filled to capacity with Heartless. Leon pointed to them and then mid-sentence the screen went dark and there was a very long silence.

"Uh, did the game freeze up?" Sora looked like he was going to hit the console.

"No, there's just a ridiculously long pause here." Leon's voice and the picture returned. "See?"

"Huh."

"You know it's sad that Leon had to ask you what's going on."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Listen to yourself!" Riku gestured. "That has to be the most uninformative explanation I've ever heard. 'Well's there's this Pete guy but no one cares about him'. Then why bring him up! Focus on the Organization!"

"_You called?"_

"And on that subject…."

"I wanna know how they do that!"

"I can do that." Riku rolled his eyes. "Anyone who can access dark corridors can do that. You just project your voice through the darkness."

"Really? But how- Oh, crap! I'm gonna die!" Sora began frantically fighting off Nobodies.

"Now see, at least Leon _helps_ you!" Riku had given up trying to study. Sora could have saved back at Restoration Headquarters but, well, Riku hadn't been paying attention and he really did not want to be doing homework. "I want to know what's up with some of these attacks they came up with. I mean, why the heck is the Gunblade now like three times as big? Wasn't it big enough?"

"I don't think I've ever seen it do that." Sora bit his lip in concentration. "Man, Dusks are a pain."

"Weren't they always?"

"Finally!" Sora exclaimed as the last Nobody disappeared. Then the he on screen ran out to a platform and the disembodied voices started up again, teasing him. "You know, I just took out their little… minions or whatever and they're _still_ making fun of me!"

"Riled you up though, didn't it?"

"Oh, whatever!" The brunette shook his head in annoyance. "They're dead now."

Wow, that was harsh. Riku narrowed his eyes at the back of Sora's head. He had no idea where that comment had come from.

"And what was he raising his hands to?" Sora shouted in exasperation. "You know, the more I think about it the less sense it makes!"

"So stop thinking about it."

"But I _want_ to think about it!" Sora protested. "I _want_ to understand it!"

"Trust me, Sora." Riku spoke softly. "You're really better off not knowing."

"You keep saying that!" The younger one whirled on him. "Is it really that terrible?"

"I don't know." Riku studied his hands a moment. "Maybe it isn't but… I don't know. Maybe I'm just too close to it."

Sora clearly did not understand what Riku meant by that statement. He wanted to ask but the closed off expression on the older boy's face prevented him. Riku was obviously not able to discuss this. With a sigh, he turned back to his game.

The Organization members disappeared but one reappeared to block Donald. He started on a small rant, sounding amused at the whole situation. The guy was cocky as heck but then again, Sora was right back at him.

"Was that Xigbar or Luxard?" Riku asked, all earlier sign of melancholy gone.

"Xigbar, I think. Luxard had an accent." Sora frowned. "Do you have any idea how annoying it was having all of those guys continuously talking to and about me as if they knew me? They didn't know _me_. They knew Roxas. We're not the same."

Riku snorted. "Do you know how many times I heard Roxas say the same thing about you?"

"Really?"

"Really." The coat disappeared. _That was weird._ "That was completely pointless."

Sora grinned. "Yeah, it was, wasn't it?"

Riku laughed. "I love how you say 'only one me' and then have to whip out your card as if you have to confirm it."

"I just this urge to look at it."

"Yeah, I figured that when it started glowing and you used it to open the gateway." The silvered one was still chuckling. "It's still funny."

"I guess." Sora agreed. "You know, I do feel bad about how I was always running off on them."

"You had things you needed to do."

"I know and I know they knew but it still was kinda rude." Narrow shoulders shrugged. "So where do we go now?"

"Pick a world."

"Am I gonna have to dogfight again?"

"Yep."

"Great. Okay…. We'll go this way." He picked a route and rather quickly got through the ship fight. "All right, where are we…. Oh! Land of the Dragons, cool."

"Yeah, cool." Riku hated that world. Not nearly as much as some others but it was definitely up there.

"Ooooh, I hate that guy! He was totally _evil_. He just burned entire villages for no reason!"

"I'm sure there was a reason. Maybe not a good one or one you understand but he had to have one. No one just burns down villages for the heck of it."

"Sephiroth did."

"Did Cloud tell you that?" Riku snorted. "Figures."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"In his mind, Sephiroth had a perfectly good reason to burn Neibleheim down. He believed that the people there were holding Mother prisoner and he had to free her. If Cloud spent any time trying to understand Sephiroth, he'd get that."

Blue eyes narrowed at Riku. "How come you know so much about Sephiroth?"

"Curiosity." He replied simply. "Go play with Mushu. We really have to stop soon."

"Okay." Sora returned to the cutscene. "I feel really stupid for jumping them like that."

"You should. Those kind of tactics will get you killed." Riku commented. "I can't believe Goofy is the only one who noticed 'Ping' was a girl. I mean, how unobservant are you people?"

"Hey, she did a really good job!"

"Whatever." Riku waved it off. "I also can't believe they let a couple of wise guys like you in the Imperial Army."

"Hey! I'll have you know-"

"Save point." Riku called out.

"Huh? Oh." Sora completely forgot whatever he was going to say. He saved the game and placed the controller on the console. "I can play again tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah but we do our schoolwork first." Riku glanced at the wall its nine-thirty already.

"It is? Crud." Sora yanked his backpack to him by one strap. "You gotta help me with this chemistry assignment. I'm gonna be up all night!"

"Who's fault is that?"

"Shut up!" Blue eyes glared and Riku swore he had a flashback of Roxas. "You gonna help me?"

Riku shook himself of it. "Yeah. Set it out on the coffee table."


	12. Mulan and the Beast

I wrote this in a bit of a hurry… All errors/mistakes are mine.

--0—0—

"Oh, man today sucked!" Sora complained, throwing his backpack on to the floor. "Three pop quizzes! Three! On the same day. What's with that?"

"It's not like they coordinate with each other, Sora." Riku set his bag on the coffee table, tossing his keys onto the entertainment center with exact precision. "Stop trying to turn it into a conspiracy."

"It just… sucks." The brunette whined. He plopped himself on the floor before the TV, turning it on and opening the side compartment to switch on the game console.

Riku frowned at him. "Can't you wait five minutes?"

"Why?"

The silvered one shook his head. It was not worth arguing about. Let the boy play for an hour or so and then they could do their homework. He settled himself on the sofa and watched on as Sora reloaded his game and he, Donald, Goofy, 'Ping' and Mushu met up with the military base camp.

"Man, that was hard work." Sora commented as he ran himself around for the Imperial Army. "I am never joining the military."

"They'd probably court-martial you before you finished basic training." Riku snickered. "You can't follow orders for nothing."

"I can if they make sense! They just usually don't."

"I'm still trying to figure out why you felt in necessary to pick a fight with those guys in line."

"Because they were being jerks!" Sora announced as if it should have been obvious. "They totally asked for it!"

"But you don't pick fights."

Sora tilted his head. He kept playing as he talked. "Well, yeah. I didn't think of that. Actually, now that I _am_ thinking about it, I did pick a lot of fights while I was going around. Even Donald had to tell me to back down a few times."

He stopped as the game went into a cut scene of a burned out village. "You know, that was the first time I ever saw that kind of damage done by an actual person. It really hit me then that people could really be that terrible."

"Yeah, we can be." Riku muttered.

"Oh, don't get all emo on me again." Sora chastised. "If you're doing this now, I don't want to see you closer to the end."

Riku kept quiet.

"You know, when I first got into the mountains and in the snow, I thought it was the coolest thing. Now, it's kind of a pain." The younger teen commented as he engaged the dozens of Heartless ShanYu sent toward them. "Oh and then Mulan had to start that freakin' avalanche."

"It was a brilliant idea," Riku noted. "Just poorly executed."

Sora shrugged a bit. "Mushu really does not know how to keep his mouth shut."

"A lot of your friends are like that." They continued watching the scene. "You are so lucky he didn't execute you."

"Oh, the captain wouldn't have."

"Oh, yes he would have. I was there for one of his disciplinary hearings." Riku stated firmly. "Four men were killed for abandoning their posts."

Sora whirled on him. "And you just _watched_?"

"What was I supposed to do, Sora? It wasn't my concern."

Blue eyes stared at him in complete disbelief. "I can't believe you didn't do anything."

They fell silent as the cut scene finished. Sora was obviously upset and Riku really had no way to explain his actions that Sora would accept. They were simply too different when it came to these kinds of things.

ShanYu returned and more Heartless appeared. Sora made short work of them and continued on to find Shang and warn him of the coming threat. The captain, of course, did not believe them until he saw the man for himself. When he ordered his soldiers to protect the emperor, several of them mysteriously turned into Heartless themselves.

This snapped Sora out of his funk. "What? It doesn't happen like that! You don't just whoosh into a Heartless, one has to take your heart."

"Like getting bitten by a zombie." Riku added flatly.

"Exactly!" Sora abruptly turned. "Wait, what?"

"It's like those Resident Evil movies and the T-virus."

"Oh, yeah." Sora nodded. "Pretty much."

The Heartless were defeated and Mushu started prancing around. Riku made a face. "_Hunny bun_? That is the worst pun I have ever heard."

The younger one was not paying any attention. He was listening to the emperor list everything Mulan had done wrong. Then he stated the one thing she did right. "You know, for an emperor, he was pretty cool. And he let her into his guard even though she was a girl."

"I liked him. He had a dry sense of humor I appreciated."

Sora turned. "For just how long did you talk to him?"

"I was there for two days." The older clarified. "I really wasn't to crazy about Shang. We didn't get on too well."

"That doesn't surprise me a whole lot."

"Did you really ask her for an autograph?" Riku snickered.

"Huh?" The brunette twisted his lower lip. "Oh, well, she was famous now and no one I'd come across was like, world famous."

Riku made a light noise in the back of his throat. Then his green eyes flicked back to the screen where Sora was chasing after Mushu. "And here you go, over-reacting again."

"Well, he did lie to us."

"True." Riku supposed. Mulan's sword started glowing and left her hand. "I still don't quite understand how the whole object turning into a key to the gateways works. Or how come you always conveniently met up with the right people for it."

"Destiny." Sora said simply and his cgi self opened the gate, locking it in place. "I'm not too sure how I knew what to do when it happened."

"The Keyblade." Riku answered as simply as Sora had made his statement. Then he laughed. "You are such a goof."

"What?"

"_You two play nice._" Silver hair fell forward as Riku stood up. He ruffled Sora's spikes as he passed him for the kitchen. "The boy who hasn't so much as kissed a girl making suggestive comments."

Sora blushed. He fished around for a retort but did not find one. Instead he only shouted, "Get me a soda."

Riku laughed from the kitchen as Sora resumed his game, looking to see where he was off to next. He whipped through the gate battle and grinned a little upon landing at Beast's Castle. Riku had come back and tossed a bottle in the brunette's lap.

He glanced at the screen a brief moment, his mouth tightening for a second. He then sat back on the sofa, removing his philosophy text from his bag. Settling himself, he opened the book to the chapter he was supposed to read.

"Hey, aren't you going to watch?"

"I am."

"No, you're doing homework." Sora complained. "What's your problem with Beast's Castle? You weren't there too, were you?"

"If I had been, Beast would have certainly killed me." Riku softly answered, skimming over a page. "He is one of the last people I'd expect to let go off what I did."

Sora frowned. "You mean kidnapping Belle."

"Yep. Play your game."

The brunette shook his head, turning back to the screen. "Belle doesn't hold it against you."

Riku allowed himself a small grin. "Most of the princesses don't. That does not, however, mean that those around them are going to be as understanding."

Sora began fighting the Heartless that surrounded him in the study. He supposed that was true but he did not like it. After a while, Beast stalked in and simply started shoving things out of his way, including Sora, Donald, and Goofy. He then picked up the cased rose in the corner and stalked back out.

"I guess with how he was acting then you're right." Sora reluctantly agreed. "But I bet now he'd forgive you."

Riku made no reply.

The trinity wandered around a bit, ending up outside Belle's room. Donald tried to bust down the door but Belle opened it causing him to fly down onto his face. Sora snickered at it, muttering _idiot._

"Who's the one who jumped Mulan?"

"Hey, at least I learned from it!" Sora protested. As Belle explained Beast's strange behavior and the need to rescue her friends, Sora tilted his head. "You know, she's the prettiest of the princesses. And she was really nice."

Riku flicked his green eyes up. "Humm."

"You don't think she's pretty?"

"I never really looked at any of them like that." Riku shrugged. "They were a job, nothing more."

"How can you do that?" Sora queried as he sent himself to the dungeon. "How do you just objectify a living being?"

The older teen sighed. "It's hard to explain, Sora and even if I did, I doubt you'd get it. I just told myself this was what I had to do and I did it."

Sora wanted to say something but they had triggered the dungeon door fight and he had to concentrate on that. Once finished, the group entered the room of inanimate objects. "Ya know, after everything I had seen, those guys still completely freaked me out."

"I would imagine so." Riku smirked. "And there goes Donald again."

"You know, he used to give me such a hard time about meddling and all that but he was at least as bad as me! I mean, yeah, I tended to get caught up in other people's business but he was just…"

"Obnoxiously curious and temperamental?"

"Yeah." Sora watched the screen. Beast was being encouraged to feed his anger. "I can't believe they really thought they could turn Beast into a Heartless by using Belle against him. And he fell for it! He believed this robed guy who suddenly appeared over the people he loved."

Riku looked up. "It isn't all that different from what happened to me."

Sora stopped hit buttons and almost died before regaining his senses. He finished the fight with Beast and as the cutscene started he turned. "I never thought of it that way."

"Well now you have. We were both being manipulated." The silvered one watched the screen. "Xaldin used Beast's weakness against him just like Maleficent did with me.

"And Goofy is a bit too optimistic here." Riku noted as Goofy concluded that Beast threw everyone in the dungeon for their own good. "He did not lock them up to protect them from himself."

Sora frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"Because if he was as lost as he claims, he would have seen them as enemies. He wouldn't care what happened to them so long as they were out of the way and no longer a threat."

"Then why didn't he just kill them?" Sora challenged.

"The same reason I didn't kill you." Riku answered easily. "I wanted you out of the way, not dead."

Sora stared at him as he returned to his book. He was beginning to really see why Riku held on to as much guilt as he did. He was learning more through this video game than he had in the entire time they had been back on the Islands.

"You gonna play?"

"Oh, right." The younger one turned back to the game. He wandered back to find Belle, eventually ending up at the Ballroom. Belle ran through it and an enormous Heartless appeared, consuming the room. He frantically hit buttons and died almost immediately. "Thank goodness I saved before coming here."

"It took me three four tries to beat this one." Riku noted. "The last round, it all just kinda fell into place and it was easy."

Sora took two more tries before defeating the boss. "That's one less than you!"

"You did it real life."

"True but it's really different in the game." Sora commented, taking a drink from his bottle. "Some of this actually seems harder in here than it was when I really did it. I'm kinda dreading the Organization."

"It definitely gets harder as the game goes on." Riku grinned at the cutscene. "It still gets me that Goofy is the smarter one out of all of you."

"What?"

"Goofy was the brains of your little operation." Riku smirked. "Which doesn't say much for your group."

"Hey!" Sora whapped his best friend's leg with his capped bottle. "You calling me stupid?"

"Nope, just a little slow on the uptake."

Sora pouted and turned back to the TV in a huff. Lumier was explaining the rose thing and how to become human again, Beast had to learn to love and then be loved in return. Goofy and Mrs. Potts made their optimistic replied to Sora's query of whether Beast would make it.

Riku chuckled as he stated along with Sora on the screen. "_I hope you're right._ Way to be encouraging, Sora."

Sora sputtered. "Yeah, well… it seemed _really_ unlikely then."

"Uh huh." Riku gestured at the screen. "Now this one I really don't get. You weren't even in the same _room_ as the rose and somehow, you just knew it was the key."

"_I_ didn't know." The spiky-haired youth countered. "The Keyblade did."

The group said their farewells and Sora again looked at the screen oddly. "Okay, I can see asked them to let me know if they heard anything about the king and all that but why the heck would I mention you, too? They'd have no idea who you were."

"I want to know how they were supposed to let you know." Riku added. "It's not like they knew where you would be or any of you had communication devises."

Sora scrunched his face. "Yeah, that too."

The world map came up. "So where to next?"

"You're expected to return to Hollow Bastion every so often, by the way." Riku advised. As he said this, Chip and Dale noted that they were being recalled to that very place. "And sometimes his makes you go."

"This must be when Merlin needed us to help Pooh bear."

Riku snickered.

"Hey! Don't make fun of Pooh!" Sora entered Merlin's house and talked to the old wizard, who indeed showed him a story book. Then Merlin disappeared and Sora decided to visit the 100 Acre Woods. He told the others to cover for him.

"Exactly what were they covering for?"

"In case anyone came looking for me." Sora spoke simply as he ran himself into the book and landed on its pages.

"No one knew you were there."

"That's beside the point." Sora waved a dismissive hand. He went over to Pooh's house and talked to the bear for a minute. They were about to exercise, which Riku again snickered at, when everything froze and Sora was ripped from the scene.

He landed on the wood floor with a thud and the book shut. Donald called from outside and Sora ran out to help them fight some Heartless. A few of the Shadows stole the book and they ran after them.

"Save the next chance you get."

Sora nodded, finishing off the fight and reclaiming the book. "How long has it been?"

"It's almost six."

"Really? Wow, this game eats up time." Him on the screen returned into the book where Pooh no longer remembered Sora or any of his friends.

"The Final Fantasy games are worse." Riku noted. "I can't believe Tidus is into seven, that's just weird. If he ever found out about any of this being real, he'd have a coronary."

Merlin returned and they discussed the missing pages before Sora hit the save point in the corner of the room. He set the controller down reluctantly and climbed to his feet. "Yeah, they would totally freak. I wish we could tell them, though. I'd like to be able to talk about all of this with other people."

Riku nodded understandingly.

"All right," Sora retrieved his backpack. "Thankfully, I don't have too much homework today."

"I've got a ton." Riku frowned. "And I'm going to have to use the computer for a lot of it."

"Oh, so up to your room then?"

"It's probably a good idea."

Sora hefted his bag and went to the game console, switching it off. "Let's go then."


	13. Disney Castle and the Cornerstone

Sora fidgeted from the floor of Riku's bedroom. He had finished his homework about twenty minutes ago and was debating on where to ask Riku, again, how much more he had to do. Why did his best friend have to be in all the stupid accelerated classes?

"If you keep distracting me, I'll never finish."

"Sorry," he did not sound it in the least. "I'm just bored."

"Sorry." Riku echoed absently.

They fell quiet again and eventually Sora was again twitching. A few more minutes passed before Riku sighed. He shut his physics book and sat up on his bed. "All right, you win."

"Huh?" Sora blinked.

"I'm not going to get anything else done up here so I'm going to bring my dad's laptop downstairs and do my paper on that." The silvered one slid off the bed. "That way you can play the game but you _have_ to let me work."

Sora leapt to his feet. "Okay."

He darted for the door, missing Riku's exasperated yet amused look. He called over his shoulder that he would get the game started while Riku got out the computer. The older teen shook his head, grabbed the notebook he needed and went to retrieve the laptop from his father's office.

By the time he got downstairs, Sora had the game going once again and was at the world map. Riku settled himself on the couch, setting the laptop on the cushion beside him and starting it. Then he flipped through the notebook.

"All right, and now I'm off Disney Castle!" Sora grinned. "That's a sweet castle."

"It's very peaceful there." Riku observed from the couch.

Sora turned his head. "You've been to Disney Castle?"

"Yeah, a few times." Riku smirked even though he did not look up from the laptop now resting on his knees. "I am King Mickey's favorite."

"What?" Sora gaped. "You are not! Just because he knows you better and you spent more time with him and… Darn it, you are the favorite."

The silvered one chuckled as Sora returned to the screen to fight his way through the gate and land at Disney Castle. He, Donald, and Goofy disembarked and the two human-animals looked around the garage as Sora talked. The real Sora angled his head. "You know, I was kinda jealous that we went there. I really wanted to come home, too."

"Understandable."

Chip and Dale came running over and urging them to see Queen Minnie in the library. The group ran off and emerged in a large courtyard. Some heartless got in the way but Sora simply barreled through them. "Hey, Riku? Since you and the King are pretty close, how come he didn't ask you to protect the Queen?"

Riku stopped typing for a moment. "Well, I kinda ditched Mickey after the initial Roxas thing. I saw him once after I captured Roxas but after that… well…"

"That whole 'being ashamed of yourself' thing." Sora nodded sadly. "I gotcha. I still say you shouldn't have been."

Riku was spared having to reply by the trio on screen's arrival to the library. Donald and Goofy saluted and greeted her then Sora simply walked up and began asking questions. Minnie simply looked at him in bemusement as Donald forced him to his knees.

"You know, I still can't believe that in that year I was sleeping, the King didn't visit home at least once." Sora noted as the group began talking about heartless.

"Oh, he did." Riku countered. "There's a lot this game gets wrong but it's a video game. They can't get everything right. We went to the castle twice. Minnie makes the best little strawberry tarts."

"Really?" Sora turned.

"Yeah, always served them with tea." Aqua eyes flicked toward the screen. "You're supposed to be taking her to the audience chamber."

Sora turned back around. "Wait, why are we splitting up? Why are Donald and Goofy running around warning everyone? They have a public address system! The darn thing was blaring the whole time we were there!"

"Another pointless thing they put in the game." Riku had begun typing again. "Oh, was it just me or was that march they kept playing really obnoxious?"

"You mean the one playing now?" Sora asked. "Yeah, I kinda liked it at first but after the fifth time it got kinda old."

"Exactly."

Sora turned back and began escorting the queen. "Man, she's slow. It's like she doesn't even notice I'm being attacked here and, whoa, that was cool! She just raised her hand like took out five of them! What the heck did she need me for?"

"Minnie has really good defensive magic but she can't take too many at a time."

Sora and Minnie reached the throne room and he waited for her to open the door. When the tiny hole in the massive doors appeared, Sora shook his head and chuckled. "That still cracks me up. Big huge doors and they use this itty bitty opening."

"Those doors have four settings for different sized visitors." Riku commented idly.

"Really? That's kinda cool." On the screen, they had entered the throne room and things were silent. Sora bit his lip, fingers poised on the controller. "Wait for it…. Boom."

Several large Heartless flashed to life and he began attacking. "Yeah, lot of good sealing that room did there, Your Highness."

"Hey!" Riku looked up with narrowed eyes. "She couldn't have known the Cornerstone was corrupted. She did what she thought was best."

"Ugh!" Sora groaned. "I died. Great, now I've got to do it again."

As he restarted, he glanced over his shoulder. "I totally wasn't dissing the Queen, by the way. I just freakin' had so much trouble in that room."

"Looks like you still are." Riku commented dryly as Sora died yet again. "It took me four tries to get Minnie to the throne."

Sora growled as he began again. "If she would just stay on the carpet instead of wandering off, this would be so much easier."

This time, Queen Minnie did make it to the throne. While Sora continued to hold off the Heartless, she searched over the arm of the throne. "What is she looking for? The button's right there! All she had to do was hit it!"

"Video game, Sora."

"It's stupid." She finally hit the button and a section of the floor moved, revealing a massively bright light that wiped out the remaining Heartless. As Minnie explained how the Cornerstone of Light worked and how it had always protected their world, Sora leaned back and regarded Riku with an upside-down face. "Hey, Riku. Why don't other worlds have something like that?"

"What? The Cornerstone?" The silvered teen shrugged. "No idea. Would have made things a lot easier, huh?"

"Well, yeah." Sora spat out, straightening out to watch the screen again. "What was with all the thorns anyway? It's not like they blocked us from reaching the thing?"

"Think of them as Maleficent's calling card. She has a thing for using thorn bushes." When the witch appeared, Riku flicked his eyes up and snorted. "I can't believe I let myself be manipulated by a self-centered idiot like her."

"So, does she like, have nothing better to do than go around annoying people?"

"Nope, spends the whole game real estate shopping." Riku returned to his report. She just keeps going around trying to find the perfect castle."

Maleficent disappeared, her laugh lingering on for much longer than necessary. Sora shook his head and at the exact same moment as his game-self stated, "What a hag."

Riku actually laughed. "I would have said bitch but that works, too."

The group onscreen suddenly decided to go get Merlin to figure out what's happening to the Cornerstone and how to fix it. They make a brief trip to Hollow Bastion, talk to Merlin and as Donald is explaining things, the screen faded out and they suddenly reappeared at the Cornerstone. Merlin looked the thing over and as he did, Riku paused in his work.

He unfolded his legs and stretched. "What I want to know is if he teleported all of you back to the castle, how did you end up leaving?"

Sora scrunched his face. "What do you mean?"

"Your Gummi ship would still be on Hollow Bastion."

"Well, uh," Sora cocked his head. "Yeah, that is a good question. How did the Gummi get back there?"

Riku stared at him. "Wait. You seriously don't know?"

The brunette shook his head.

Riku rolled his eyes and fell back on the sofa. "You goof. Go through your door and save."

"Huh? Oh." Sora turned back to the game. "This place was weird."

"I'm trying to figure out what the dark thing you might be tempted to do is." Riku hit save on the laptop. "This whole last little bit of Merlin's speech makes absolutely no sense."

Sora thought about it for a minute. "Yeah, it didn't, did it? I never felt tempted to do anything bad in there. It was just a bunch of random problems we had to solve and Pete causing a commotion. Actually, the whole thing was rather pointless."

"That's what it seemed like to me. In here it's just some mini-games." Riku rolled his shoulders. "I'm hungry."

"Me too." Sora agreed. "But I wanna get all this Cornerstone stuff done."

"Fine," Riku stood up. "You stay here and play and I'll run down the street for something. These stupid games are easy anyway."

"Okay." Sora nodded. "I want a cheeseburger and fries with a chocolate shake."

"You buying it?"

"Uh…"

Riku whapped the back of his head. "Fine. Be done with this Cornerstone nonsense by the time I get back."

--0—0—

When Riku returned, Sora looked over and grinned. "That was so freakin' pointless! Maleficent is an idiot."

"Yeah," Riku handed the younger teen his shake and dropped the food bag on the table. "Why the hell did she leave Pete in charge when she knew he was a complete numb-nuts is beyond me. She wasn't nearly that stupid in reality."

"I didn't even _do_ most of this for real!" Sora exclaimed. "This whole world, level thing was totally blown out of proportion! We were there for like, maybe, a half hour. We didn't even get to ride the steamboat and that would have been totally cool!"

"So you're done?"

"Yeah, we're just leaving for another world." Sora grinned. "Oh, there's Daisy. I like her! She totally had Donald whipped."

"Yeah, she's cool."

"…And now we seal the world."

"…And head for a Gummi ship that shouldn't be there." Riku dropped back on the sofa and dup in the bag of food.

"Hey! I don't get it either." Sora protested. He quickly went though the mini-game and the Coliseum appeared. "Oh, cool. Auron's in this?"

"Yeah, they got him down pretty well, too." Riku pulled out his fries. "And the maps don't help. You're still gonna get lost wandering the Underworld."

"Great." They watched as Hercules tossed around a Titan and the crowd roared. The group walked into a cavern and the first thing Sora did was head for the save point. "Okay, I'm done for now."

He hopped up on his knees and scooted toward the coffee table. "Man, this game is long. And you said the others are longer?"

"Yeah. They don't have spoken dialog either so you have to read all o the conversations."

Sora's jaw dropped. "Are you serious? Man, I don't think I can pay that much attention for that long. Maybe I'll just watch you play them."

"Oh, no." Riku countered as Sora pulled out his food. "If you want to watch Cloud and Leon and them, you're doing it on your own time. I've already played my time through."

Sora pouted. "But, Riku-"

"No."

"Fine," Sora bit into his cheeseburger. "Then I'll get Tidus to play it for me."

"Have fun trying to keep your mouth shut."

The younger teen scowled. "Fine. And I'm still waiting to see this Advent Children movie you claim exists."

"I'm working on it!"

"Uh huh." Sora grinned. "So can I play again tomorrow?"

"I have the doctors." Riku frowned. He hated going to the doctors. "If you go with me, then we can try playing after if Dad lets us have the TV."

"Okay."


	14. Coliseum

So, uh… been awhile, huh? Yeah. Anyway, it came to my attention that somehow I completely skipped the Coliseum. I don't know how that happened but here it is. We'll just pretend this is the right order of things. It will be back on track after this one, whenever I get to it.

Yes, I know there probably are a _ton_ of details that are wrong and/or missing. Sorry, I'm doing this from memory and Kh-vids cutscenes.

Thank you for the help, sassy and everyone make sure to answer the question at the end.

--0—0--

"Why do you hate the doctors so much?" Sora asked as they walked down the street they both lived on. His fingers were laced together behind his head and he glanced over at Riku curiously.

Riku shrugged. "I honestly don't know. For as long as I can remember, I've despised going. I really hate going when I'm not sick."

"At least it was a short visit."

"Yep." They turned up the walk and entered Riku's house. The front room was quiet but they could hear Riku's mother in the kitchen. It was one of the two days of the week that both of his parents were home for dinner.

"Is that you, Riku?"

"Yeah, Mom."

The blonde woman stuck her head out of the kitchen. "Dad got held up at work so it's just us for dinner. Hello, Sora."

"Hi."

Riku nodded and set his satchel on the couch. "Didn't Auntie want to get together with you this week?"

His mother angled her head. "Yes, why?"

"Sora and I are really caught up in a video game so if you want to go out with her tonight since Dad won't be here, that would be alright."

She nodded. "That's a really good idea. Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Riku stated easily. He glanced at the coffee table and noted a medium sized envelope on top of the pile of mail. He picked it up, noting his name on it.

A smile suddenly lit his face and he glanced at Sora. Holding it up, he smirked. "Guess what this is?"

Sora cocked his head. "Uh… no idea."

"Not even a guess?"

Frowning, Sora bit his lip. "Mom gets her club newsletters in envelopes that size. Did you join a club?"

Riku snorted. Well, if Sora did not have a clue then he would just let the younger one stew over it for a while. He moved over to the entertainment center and dropped the package on top of it. "How long before dinner, Mom?"

"I just started it," her voice drifted toward them. "So maybe an hour."

Turning back toward Sora, Riku folded his arms before him. "Homework or try to get through the Underworld?"

"Underworld!" Sora darted forward, sliding to his knees before the television. He reached out to turn it on as Riku pulled out the controller. "We can do homework while we're digesting."

"Sure." Riku tossed him the controller. "If you aren't still stuck in this level."

"Hey! I know my way around the Underworld." Sora protested, loading his saved game. "This'll be easy. It's not _that_ much of a maze."

Riku said nothing and dropped on to the sofa. How many times was it going to take for Sora to understand that the game was not the same as the reality of their journey? Oh, well. The younger teen would learn soon enough.

Sora whipped through rescuing Meg from the Heartless and listened to her go on about Hercules before letting himself wander of. "You know, it was really annoying being called Junior Heroes. I mean, after all we did."

"I think it was rather appropriate."

Sora whirled on him with narrowed eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, come on, Sor most of that was blind luck the first time around."

"Well," Sora stopped and pouted. "Maybe a little but we still had to work really hard!"

"Hey, no one said you didn't and in the end, didn't you earn your hero status?" Riku asked pointedly. "That's not a small thing."

"Yeah, I guess." Donald suddenly spoke and the brunet jumped. He looked back at the screen. "Shoot. What did I miss?"

"Demyx just ran by."

"Oh." Sora sent himself after him and ended up quickly locating the black hooded figure. When they did, the Nobody charged them, going straight past them and shouting in a panicked tone 'run, run away' before disappearing into a dark corridor. "Demyx confused the heck out of me. How the heck did he end up in the Organization any way? He's such a… I don't even know."

"He nearly got you on Hollow Bastion," observed Riku. "He may have been a pacifist but once he got going…"

"Yeah, he was really tough to beat." Sora angled his head. "He just seemed too… nice for the Org."

"He wanted a heart just like the rest of them."

The scene cut to Hades and Pete talking. Pete kept laughing at his own jokes to which Riku rolled his eyes. "That guy was such an idiot. I still have no idea why Maleficent kept him around."

Sora turned back and smirked. "Cause he was the only one stupid enough to stick around, duh."

The silvered teen angled his head thoughtfully. "That's… a really good theory. I never thought about it from that angle."

"Meh, I have my moments." Sora shrugged, going back to his game. "You know, Hercules didn't usually kill people so this whole conversation is pointless."

"They just needed a reason for why Hades chose Auron."

"You know," The younger one laughed. "Hades really should have learned after Cloud to not try making really strong fighters his slaves. It doesn't work."

Riku looked over as Hades and Pete walked over to a large green and black swirling vortex. "I want to know where he gets his information on people. Whoever told him Auron was the 'mother of all bad guys' has obviously not been around for very long. Auron may be a bit dark but he never was a bad guy."

Sora snorted. "If they wanted the ultimate bad guy, they should have gotten Sephiroth."

"Sephiroth would _never_ have even contemplated working under anyone." Riku spoke casually. "Maleficent tried and Sephiroth nearly killed her for just asking. Maybe it's the scar…"

"Scar?" Sora repeated.

"Auron has a scar. It kinda makes him look like a villain." Riku then shook his head. "Of course that doesn't work either because Squall has a scar and no one would ever mistake him for a bad guy."

"Leon has a scar, too, and he's really cool."

Riku closed his eyes. "Leon is Squall."

Soa froze for a second. "Oh, yeah. I can't believe I just totally forgot that."

"Goof."

On screen, Hades summoned two fireballs and in a bust of red smoke, Auron appeared. The graying man simply stood and listened as Hades made his proposition. Then he sneered at the God of the Underworld, completely unimpressed by him and practically told the god to bugger off.

Hades flared up red and shouted 'you are fired' before Auron attacked him. At this, Riku's mother poked her head in from the kitchen, phone cradled against her ear. "Did he just quote _The Apprentice_?"

"Yes, Mom."

The woman snorted, returning to the kitchen. "I swear everyone is just ripping off everyone these days."

Riku sighed. "You know, she saw me playing this the first time and only vaguely noted that the main character looked like you. However, a random reference to one of her reality shows comes up and she's all ears. She's so dense sometimes."

Back on the TV, Sora had reentered the picture and was now fighting Hades. After a few minutes of this, a cut scene again took over. Hades went on a rant about heroes being zeros in the Underworld, to which Riku snorted. "That is the dumbest thing I've heard in the past… fifteen minutes."

"He wasn't this lame in reality." Sora set controller down and worked his fingers as Auron jumped in and advised them to leave. "He flat out told us that only the dead had any strength there. Without the amulet, if we spent too long there we would have slowly died."

The group ran through the large, thick doors of Hades' chamber and Sora and Goofy quickly shut them. "It's funny that those doors were twice as thick as the ones guarding Kingdom Hearts and yet me and Goofy had no trouble closing them."

Riku shifted his position on the couch. "Maybe you just really wanted to close those doors more."

"Well, yeah." Sora sounded as if that was to only answer. "It killed me to leave you behind."

Biting his lip, Riku refused to give in to the suddenly sappy feeling that rose in his chest. He knew how hard that event had been on both of them but they had never spoken to each other about it. He still did not want to and he was fairly certain that Sora was not too keen on it either but these little admissions and slips said volumes.

Hades appeared on their side of the door and Sora took up the controller to begin the long, drawn out fight along the pathway leading from the doors. "I really did forget about the teleporting thing."

"It happens."

They reached a clearing and the group introduced one another. Sora turned out what they were saying and turned on his knees to face Riku. "You know, Auron kinda reminds me of you, Cloud and Leon put together. I bet all of you would get along really well."

Riku frowned. "We would all probably just stand around not talking."

"Exactly!" Sora waved a hand. "But I just know that somehow, you'd all _get_ one another, you know?"

Riku really had no idea where Sora was getting this from but simply nodded. He actually did understand the other three fairly well having played the games they were from. It had not been too hard to relate to any of them either. That did not mean, however, that they would get along if they met.

Suddenly, Hades yelled and Sora whipped back around. "Oh, goodie. Cerberus. I hated fighting that dog. You know, I wonder if I had just thrown it a really big bone…"

Sora on-screen aimed the Keyblade to unlock the dead-end doors they met up with just as the three-headed dog appeared. Auron told him to go but of course he did not. Instead he moved to the man's side and they began fighting.

Riku chuckled. "Or you could have tried playing music for him."

"Oh, yeah!" Sora laughed as he mashed buttons. "Like Fluffy in Harry Potter! That would have been nice if he had a weakness like that."

Cerberus was defeated a few minutes later and Sora, along with Auron ran through the nearly closed entryway. Before shutting it completely, Sora, Donald and Goofy made silly faces at it. The jagged doors then slammed shut.

"Tell me you did not really do that." Riku pleaded even though he already knew the answer.

"It was funny!" Sora protested. "We had to keep the mood light somehow so we did stupid little antics."

Riku closed his eyes and leaned his head back, shaking. "Sometimes I am so glad I stayed away."

"Oh, you love us!" The younger teen grinned. It abruptly fell. "Though Auron wasn't amused by it. You know, he was kinda… I don't know. Sometimes he seemed to find us really annoying and other times I would catch him looking at me like I reminded him of someone."

"You probably did."

"Maybe." On screen, it cut to Meg and Hercules. Meg was trying to convince Hercules to take a day off from fighting. "I never did ask Auron about what he did before he died."

"He probably wouldn't have told you if you had."

"Probably not." Sora agreed, eyes on the screen. "Leon told me a tiny bit about where he came from but Cloud? Nope, not a word. Everything I know about him comes from Aerith, Yuffie and Cid."

That made perfect sense to Riku. Cloud still had a lot of issues to work through. It was the silvered teen's belief that he had started to but when the Heartless took over and Cloud got separated from the others all the progress he had made was undone.

Sora was back on the video game. "I can't believe Hades didn't know what the Keyblade did. He spent how long with Maleficent?"

"She never went into the whole Kingdom Hearts keyblade thing with any of them." Riku explained idly. "All she really told them was that by finding the keyholes to their respective worlds, they could take control of them. The idiots simply followed her blindly from there."

Sora shook his head. "And people wonder how they were all defeated by a fourteen-year-old kid."

They were back at the Coliseum now and Hercules emerged through the door to begin a conversation. Meg hovered in the back ground. "You know, I still don't get exactly how he was manipulating her with the statue thing."

Riku shrugged though the brunet would not see it. "I assume he has part of her soul and uses it as leverage against her."

"But wouldn't that mean she's dead?"

"Technically."

"That would explain a few things." Sora spoke absently, guiding himself out to talk to Phil. The satyr began talking to him as if he where Hercules and the real Sora lightly growled. "Phil really needs to learn to pay more attention to who's around him."

"He also needs to earn to count." The older teen muttered. "He comes off as the classic dumb jock in here."

"Are you boys almost finished in there? Dinner's about ready."

"Yeah, a few more minutes, Mom." Riku called back.

"Darn it," Sora mildly cursed. "I wanted to bust up some stuff."

He skipped ahead and Hercules strolled out onto the main floor of the Coliseum. He told them that the Olympus Stone had been stolen, which needed to be found quickly. Shortly after, Hades appeared and began goading the half-god about Meg being 'lost' in the Underworld.

Riku laughed at the large god flicking Sora in the head to push him away. When Sora glared back, he merely shrugged. "It's funny."

"Whatever." Sora turned back as he volunteered to help Hercules. Pegasus, who had arrived for no apparent reason flew off to find Meg which made no sense what-so-ever. If she was in the Underworld, how would Pegasus flying around help locate her? "How much longer is this?"

"A lot." Riku answered, straightening out. "You've got to locate Meg and fight Demyx. Save it when you get back into the Underworld."

The brunet nodded, proceeding to do just that. He talked to Phil for a minute then went and saved. When finished he tossed the controller down and stood up, stretching. "I'm already bored with this level."

"Yeah, it seems pretty pointless until you get to the point we're at," agreed Riku, also getting to his feet.

"At least we're almost to Demyx." The shorter of the two rolled his shoulders. "I actually kinda like him."

"So do I." Riku chuckled. "Could definitely do without those damned water clones, though."

"At least you didn't have to face them in real life." Sora's blue eyes widened a bit. "Those things _hurt_."

"I believe it." Riku spoke sincerely. "Let's go eat so you can finish up the level."

--0—0—

After dinner, Riku's mother left to catch a movie with her sister. She only told them to behave and make sure they got their homework finished. Both teens merely nodded in the way all teenagers did when told what to do and she cuffed Riku's shoulder as she walked out.

Sora threw himself before the television. "Dinner was pretty good. Your mom got it right this time, Ku."

"She's been taking lessons." Riku resumed his place on the couch.

Sora turned everything on and loaded his game. "Toss me a pillow."

Riku did so, hurtling it at his friend's spiky head. "You could have grabbed one as you passed the couch."

"I forgot." Sora stated simply as the pillow made contact. He left it were it fell and positioned himself around as he walked himself back through the Underworld.

After several mis-turns and backtracks, Riku snickered at him. "Told you you'd get lost."

"I'm not lost! I just went the wrong way." Sora glowered. After another five minutes, they entered a chamber to reveal a man in a black coat. "See? I found him."

The hood fell back and Demxy, overcoming his second of surprise, tried a few times to get Sora to react to Roxas' name. He gave up in defeat and pulled out a note card.

As he read out his instructions and muttered about being the wrong guy for this, the real Sora shook his head. "I still feel bad for the guy. He was an idiot but he kinda wasn't."

Riku leaned on the sofa arm and watched Sora carefully. "I still think that under different circumstances, the two of you would have made great friends."

"Probably," agreed Sora. Demyx pulled out the Stone, which triggered a boss fight. "You know, even though I really had no idea who any of these people were and I was really angry about what they were doing, I don't know, part of me, like recognized them. Looking back, I think one of the reasons I was so… indifferent to them was because of that."

Aqua eyes narrowed with consideration. "You mean like you were trying to deny you felt any sympathy for them?"

"Kinda. I know I was a lot more aggressive toward the Nobodies than I ever was to the Heartless. I guess it was because they were consciously choosing to do all of this." Sora half-shrugged. The him on screen took a nasty hit from a water clone and began flashing red. Just as he went to heal himself, the fight ended.

Demxy rubbed at his shoulder and made a few pained noises. He looked and almost pleadingly asked for Roxas to return. Then he disappeared, leaving the stone behind. Sora on the floor chuckled. "He really wasn't good with mission stuff on his own. He works better paired."

Riku angled his head frowning. He knew that was not Sora's opinion because there was no way he could have known something like that. The silvered one said nothing, however, deciding to not call attention to the slip.

Sora on screen used the Olympus Stone so that he, Goofy and Donald could function normally in the Underworld and again headed off through the tunnels. It was another half-hour before he found his way to the chamber where Meg was embossed in stone. As he walked in, the brunet glanced over his should. "Okay, so I got a little lost. It wasn't this twisty in the real world."

Riku chuckled. "I told you."

The lock on the stone was undone and the stone disappeared revealing a large hole. The group jumped down and confronted Hades. He thanked them for using the keyblade and left leaving Pete to fight them. Sora engaged in battle and muttered. "This had to be one of the _most _pointless things yet."

"Yep," agreed Riku. "All of that just so Hades could have his own tournaments. "See why I'm glad I stayed in the shadows?"

"Good plan." The younger one ran down a group of hooked Heartless. "You still should have told me you were okay. I don't care if you didn't want to be found."

Sighing, Riku picked at the fabric of the couch. "I should have but I hoped all the clues I was leaving were enough."

"Meh, I figured it out."

"Goofy figured it out," corrected Riku with a light grin.

"Eh, details." In the game, Sora unbound Meg and as Pete got ready to rush them, Hercules appeared out of nowhere and joined in the fighting. Pegasus flew in to take Meg away and the Trinity followed leaving Hercules with Pete.

Sora dropped the controller and pointed. "Why are we leaving? We didn't do that! I don't just leave people behind like that."

"Oh, just wait." Riku informed him. "It gets stupider."

Sora in the game caught up to where Meg and Pegasus landed, Meg expressing her concern that Hercules won't be able to fight on his own. Sora then volunteers to go help and Donald orders the flying horse to take her away. They then go back the way they came.

"What. The. Heck?"

Riku laughed. "I told you. Total waste of time and completely pointless."

The group re-met up with Hercules and Pete and after some more fighting, Pete decides to run off. Before there is any time to say anything, the cavern rumbles and the heroes book it out of there. A cut scene of Hades came up, in which he seems extremely happy that the Underworld is rattling and states that Hercules is going down.

Topside, they enter the arena and the Hyrda, which was not nearly as dead as the half-god thought, was running amuck. Hercules drops to his knees, getting all emo about what was failure he is. The others try to snap him out of it but it does no good.

"He totally sounds like Cloud here." Riku noted with a snort. "_I'm not fit to help any one_. They make one freakin' mistake and the whole world collapses."

"Oh, I know. He totally shut down and now I have to take care of it." On the screen, Phil, Meg, and Pegasus took up fighting positions behind him. "And the horse thinks it's a ninja or something."

Sora began attacking the Hydra, hacking away. After a minute, he frowned. "Why is nothing happening?"

"Go over there." Riku instructed, pointing to a spot on the screen. "Phil will start yelling at you."

Sora did as told and sure enough, Phil began shouting, "Get on the Hydra's back!"

"Why the heck do I want to do that?"

"He's gonna throw pots at you and you're supposed to aim them up at the monster's heads." Riku explained. "Then jump down and begin hacking again."

"What?"

"Just do it."

Sora did as instructed, spending almost five minutes just trying to get _on_ the Hydra's back. When he finally did, the pot came hurtling at him and he batted it over. Then he leapt down and began attacking heads again. When Phil began shouting again, the brunet grumbled. "I'm kinda busy trying to kill this thing."

"You have to do it this way, Sora."

"Why?" The boy was heading up the back even as he whined the question. "When I did this for real, all I did was beat the thing up for awhile and when it started acting funny I hopped on Pegasus, flew around and chopped off its heads."

"Oh you fly on Pegasus next."

"Stupid game," grumbled Sora. He muttered darkly as he went through the pattern until prompted to use Pegasus. "Video games are not supposed to be harder than the real thing."

"Sure they are. People wouldn't play them if they were easy."

"Shut up."

After three failed attempts, Sora finally defeated the Hydra and the real teen threw the controller up and fell back on his pillow. "_That_ was a freakin' _pain_!"

"Yep. I hated this level." Riku stood. "Want some ice cream?"

"Yeah." On screen, Hercules continued his emo rant. Everyone assured him he just needed a break and Meg announced that she would take care of him. Sora snickered at that. "Meg just, like, oozed sex."

Riku paused and stared at Sora. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Well she does! I mean, look at her!" The blue-eyed boy gestured to the screen. "And that voice? Come on, Riku. You have to have noticed."

Riku shrugged non-committaly, again turning for the kitchen. As he opened the freezer, he heard Sora move around. He rather hoped Sora would decide to stop playing for a while, hence the ice cream offer. Much as he liked this game, he was getting bored.

"Why the heck do I give Goofy that chessy grin when the Stone glows to open the gate?" Sora asked loudly. "Obviously it was going to be the object that did it! There wasn't anything else that could be!"

The older teen smiled to himself, dishing out bowls of cookies and cream for both of them. It was rather entertaining watching Sora play himself and try to figure out why things were different. At least for now it was. He was a little concerned about later in the game but he would worry about that later.

He put the carton away and carried the bowls out to the living room where Sora was already zapping space Heartless to get to the next world. He placed Sora's bowl on the coffee table. "Do you know where we're going next?"

"Uh, I think Port Royal." Sora finished clearing the path and his blue eyes lit up when he saw he was correct. "Oh, sweetness! I love this place!"

"Your ice cream is going to melt." Riku sighed. Maybe he should just start on his homework….

"What? Oh, yeah." Sora scratched his head. "Well, we'll land and as soon as I can I'll save. The Coliseum was kinda long and boring. I wanna do something else for a bit."

Riku silently thanked the higher powers.

The group in TV walked through stone archways, looking over the new world. Screams from the town erupted and they ran to investigate. On the way, they came across a save point and Sora shut off the game once it was saved.

Setting the controller down, he spun around on his butt and eagerly took his bowl of ice cream. As he began scarfing it down, he asked. "So what do you want to do now? And don't say homework."

"We do need to get that done as some point."

"I know but not now." Sora groaned. On his next mouthful, he suddenly perked up. "I kinda wanna go outside and do something."

"We can see if Kairi wants to hang out for a bit."

Sora nodded vigorously. "Okay."

--0—0—0—

All right, here's the question: What should happen next, continue on to Port Royal or have a Final Fantasy break?


	15. Advent Children 1

Yes, I know it's been like beyond forever. By vote, it's Advent Children break time! No idea when the next update will be.

I don't own 'em.

* * *

They ended up going to a movie with Kairi at the boardwalk. It was some silly vampire-romance film that the girl pretended to dislike but both boys knew she really loved the book series it was based on. Only out of respect for her did they manage to keep their mouths shut and not totally rip it apart. They managed to get it all out of their systems on the walk back to Riku's house.

"…well, I don't care what the reasoning is, it's still a stupid concept." Riku shook his head as they entered his house. "And for you to know that much about the plot of the fourth book, you have to be secretly reading it."

"I'm not!" Sora protested loudly. "I swear! I don't read books I want to read, why I would I even think about reading those dumb things?"

"Then how do you know so much about Edward and Bella's anti-Christ?" Riku tossed his keys on the small table near the door.

"Because Selphie doesn't know how to shut up about it! I freakin' know more about those darn books than I ever want to!"

"I totally believe you." The silvered one smirked in a teasing manner.

"Oh, shut up." Sora shoved his shoulder. He then moved further into the living room and threw himself down on the couch. "Okay, now we need something to get that stupid movie out of our heads."

Riku shrugged. "I'll give you a choice: keep playing with yourself or watch another movie."

Sora lifted his head and twisted up his face. "You purposely said it that way, didn't you?"

"In what way?" asked the older teen innocently, walking toward the coffee table and the small package he had gotten the mail earlier.

"Never mind." Sora sat up and watched Riku pick up his mail. "So what is that anyway?"

"A movie but you aren't interested." Riku tore open an end of the heavy envelope. "Besides, it isn't in our language so you'd have to read subtitles throughout the whole thing. However it does have some kickass fight scenes…"

This got Sora's attention. "Oh yeah? That could be really cool. I mean, how much can they really say during a fight?"

Riku chuckled as he pulled out a thin DVD case. "Well, Cloud isn't much of a talker anyway."

"What?"

The taller male turned the case so that Sora could see the cheap, homemade cover that Riku's supplier had made for his translated bootleg.

"Hey!" Sora shot up and yanked it from Riku's hand. "That's Cloud and Sephiroth!"

"Duh."

"This is that Advent Children movie you keep talking about!" Sora excitedly ran around the coffee table and went for the DVD player. "We totally have to watch it!"

Riku folded his arms. "What about you and your adventures on the high seas?"

"Meh, that can wait." The brunet removed the disc from the case and placed it in the player. "I'm tired of video games right now. This sounds a whole lot cooler. Now turn all of this on cause I can't figure this system out."

Riku chuckled and grabbed the two removes off the nearby end table. His parents had a top of the line entertainment system that even confused them sometimes. If the settings on it were not just right, you got nothing.

The screen lit up and the same picture from the cover appeared on the screen. Sora grinned madly and bounded back over to the couch. He again flopped back on it. "Okay! Let's watch this thing!"

Riku dropped down on the other end and started the DVD. While he had seen a handful of scenes and knew the basic plot, this was all going to be new for him as well. Hopefully it was not going to prove to be too confusing.

Grand music played as three red animals ran toward a bluff. Upon reaching the end, it panned to a collection of broken up structures covered in bright green plant life. A flock of birds flew overhead and the screen faded to black and said something about 498 years before.

As a mountain came into view, Sora frowned. "Uh, what did that have to do with anything? Why do we care about something like five hundred years in the future?"

"No idea but that's the final scene of the game so I guess they decided it was necessary."

"Huh."

People started talking and they both shut up. There were gunshots and a helicopter with a redhead piloting. The redhead, Reno, had lines on his face. "Is it just me or do red haired people have a thing for facial tattoos?"

Riku snorted. "I was just going to ask that. Maybe it's just the game creator's weird thing."

"You know, we could really mess up our heads if we tried analyzing how much of our reality comes from these things or if they all come from reality." Sora angled his head. "It would be like, the ultimate debate of existentialism."

"Yeah," agreed Riku. He was rather impressed that Sora had made that observation. Sora was not an idiot by any means but he definitely was not very book smart. "Which is why I don't try to make sense of it. We exist; these series exist; that's it."

"Good idea." The helicopter had disappeared and was replaced by a black field with long, twirling ropes of faded green-blue and a sprinkling of likewise colored dots. "What is-?"

A girl's voice started speaking and the two teens quickly read the translation on the bottom of the screen. As the short narration of prior events and things the viewer needed to know went on, Sora's brow furrowed deeper and deeper. When it started going into SOLDIER and Sephiroth, he shook his head. "Okay, wait. I'm lost. There was some Jenova thing and the soldier guys got her cells and because of that Sephiroth decided he had to destroy the world?"

Riku paused the movie. "Okay, the way I understand it is the Shinra Company found these remains and mistook them for something they called the Ancients who were a race of people that were in some sort of symbiotic relationship with the planet. Some scientists tried to re-create this race by placing cells from the remains into their bodies.

"I don't think that all of SOLDIER got them, I think that's a mistranslation but the really powerful ones did. Sephiroth was made to be the perfect SOLDIER and had them added before birth unlike Cloud who got them later."

"Wait, Cloud has those cells?" Sora started. "How come he's nothing like Sephiroth?"

"Because he didn't go through what Sephiroth did. Cloud just had those cells added to him after the whole Nibelhiem thing." Riku tried to explain as simply as possible. "Sephiroth was an experiment from birth. When he found that out, he went insane. Since the Jenova cells were an actual part of him, he started hearing her and became obsessed with carrying out her wishes which was to destroy the planet."

"O-kay." Sora clearly still did not get it but he shrugged it off. "Whatever, I'll just ask them about it whenever we see them again."

Riku highly doubted that they were ever going to see any of the people they had met during their travels again but said nothing. He knew Sora held tightly to the belief that they would. Even if they did somehow manage to, he really doubted that Cloud, or Sephiroth for that matter, were going to want to go into the whole mess with Sora.

He restarted the movie and the girl was now talking losing someone she loved in a battle. At the scene that came up with that, Sora literally jumped up. "That's Cloud and Aerith!"

"Yeah," agreed Riku slowly.

"But Aerith isn't dead! She's there with all of the others!"

Aqua eyes narrowed a bit. "She is?"

"Yeah! She was always really nice and was so happy to see us."

"Huh," Riku pursed his lips for a moment. "Well that's interesting cause in Seven, Sephiroth kills her."

"He _what?_"

"Yeah, it's the whole reason Cloud is so emo in this movie."

"Okay, that's just messed up." Sora dropped back down. "Unless she like, came back from the dead or something which I guess is possible. I mean, it isn't like we haven't come across that happening before."

"True."

The girl was now wrapping up something about the planet using the Lifestream as a weapon to counter the large meteor that was crashing upon its surface. Sora did not seem to care anything about this so Riku did not bother to attempt to explain it. It was a good thing, too, because he figured it would have taken at least an hour to go into the whole Black and White materia thing, then to detail Meteor… That was not something he wanted to get into. A lot of it he did not really understand.

The girl's narrative shifted to a disease she called Geostigma and a bunch of kids with dirty skin and one slumping over. She said something about it being because the Planet was angry, which did not make sense to either Riku or Sora. Why would the planet be angry at the people who were trying to defend if? Plus it looked like only kids had the disease and they wouldn't have had anything to do with any of that.

They finally got to see the girl, sitting beside a boy lying in bed with a strip of cloth on his forehead. The cloth slipped away to reveal a small dirty patch and he asked her how it looked. She gave him a weak smile and the overlay voice asked that the boy, Denzel, not be taken away.

"That's…kinda sad," Sora commented softly. "I wonder if they're siblings or something."

"Naw, from what I pieced together, Marlene was one of Cloud's friend's adopted daughter and Denzel was a kid Cloud found and brought in off the street."

"Oh." The younger teen nodded. He abruptly sat up and grinned. "Hey, it's Tifa!"

"How many of these people did you meet?" Riku hated to admit to it but he had often tuned Sora out when he went on one of his long stories about his travels. It wasn't that Riku didn't care or got bored, he simply felt depressed hearing them.

"Um…" Sora tilted his head and counted on his fingers. "Cloud, Tifa, Aerith… and I think Yuffie and Cid came from the same world, too. Oh, and Sephiroth."

"So pretty much everyone."

"I guess." The brunet twisted to watch the movie again. Cloud was now onscreen, sitting astride a sleek black and gold motorcycle. As he put away his phone, the title appeared. "Dude! That motorcycle is awesome looking!"

"I know!" Riku grinned. "It's like…sex on wheels."

"Yeah- wait, what?" Sora gave his best friend a strange look.

"It is! I mean, look at it, all sleek and shiny…" Riku let out a low breath. "I bet she purrs like nuttin' else."

"Okay…" Sora continued giving Riku that look a moment longer before turning back to the television. "You've got some weird kinks, Ku."

"I didn't say I'd have sex with it, Sora. I said it was _like_ sex."

Sora stared at him. "And how would you know?"

The silvered teen blushed a bit and focused on the TV. "Cloud's leaving."

"Huh?" Sora also again returned to the screen. The blond swordsman was putting on his sunglasses and had just finished when there was a flash and he gripped his arm. "What was that?"

"No idea." Riku murmured as Cloud drove off.

More motorcycles appeared, stopping on another cliff side overlooking the ruined city and the driver of one kicked at the large sword embedded in the rock. It flipped over to lay flat on the round as the picture changed to reveal three silver-haired men. "Who are they?"

Before Riku could answer, a soft voice asked if the city they were facing was where Big Brother lived. A more nasally, almost childish voice replied maybe and then a third much deeper one told the first to not cry. All three were in variations of the same black leather clothes.

"Are they all supposed to look like Sephiroth?" Sora asked rather redundantly. He narrowed his eyes in thought. "Actually, that middle one looks a lot like you."

Riku sighed. "How did I know you were going to say that?"

"Well he does!"

"No he doesn't," countered Riku, pointing at the screen. "Kadaj's hair is completely different in both cut and color and his eyes are a totally different green. Yeah, there's some similarity in our general facial structure but that's it."

Sora angled his head and continued to study the one Riku called Kadaj. "Yeah… you're right. He's kinda… reminiscent of you. However they _all _really look like Sephiroth, same hair color exactly."

"There's a reason for that and it'll get explained later on."

Cloud drove past in the distance and Kadaj gestured with his head for the other two to go. They took off over the cliff in their bikes and gave chase to the blond man. Around them and Cloud, several strange, black monsters appeared from dark grey vapor, seemingly from nowhere.

"Whoa, those show up like Heartless do!"

"Yeah." Riku stretched his arms above his head. "Cloud's got some mad skills to be able to fight off those, Loz and Yazoo and keep Fenirr from wrecking out."

Sora nodded, watching the action with wide eyes. "I don't think I could handle that." Pause. "Did the pretty one just call him 'brother'?"

"The pretty one? You mean Yazoo?"

"Whoever the long-haired one is. Why are they calling Cloud their brother?"

"Because he has Jenova cells." Riku knew that he was going to have to launch into another long explanation. He moved for the remote to pause the film.

"Oh, yeah. So those guys are somehow connected to Sephiroth, obviously, and so since they all have the same cells, they're kinda like siblings… or at least related." Sora glanced at Riku. "Right?"

"Basically, yeah." Riku resettled into the couch.

Sora turned back just in time to see Cloud take a gunshot to the face and both teens winced. "Ow! That had to hurt."

"Well, I suppose it's better than some of the other hits he's taken but still… ow."

The monsters giving chase disappeared into smoke as Cloud's pursuers fell back and he skidded the bike to a halt. He looked up toward the cliff and stared for a moment at Kadaj. The silver-haired man smirked at him and drove off.

"Okay," Sora said slowly. "That seemed… pointless."

"It was as good an introduction to them as anything."

"True."

Fenirr was now making its way up a gravelly road surrounded by lush trees. There was another voice overlay, this time a deep, rough male's calling himself Barrett, talking about finding oil and seeing that Marlene girl. It was immediately followed by Tifa saying some Reno guy called and for Cloud to be careful.

"Wait, wasn't Reno the guy flying the chopper at the beginning?"

"Yeah," Riku nodded. "Think this has anything to do with what they were looking for in the beginning?"

"Probably. I wanna know why those other guys think Cloud has Mother." Sora abruptly turned toward Riku. "Oh, I bet Reno has her! That's probably what they were looking for in that crater!"

The older teen frowned. "Well, that was the Northern Crater and Jenova was there…Did they say they were looking for something? I think I missed that."

"No, but they had to have been there for a reason and if she was there then it totally makes sense." Sora went back to facing the screen. "Still doesn't explain how Cloud fits in but- Hey! Reno just attacked Cloud and Cloud was totally waiting for it! That was cool."

Reno reared back again to make another strike at Cloud and the blond simply stepped out of the way. Reno went skittering out the open door and before he could recover and come back in, Cloud shut it in his face. He then quickly locked it.

"Dude! That is awesome!" Sora smacked his leg. "Cloud totally needs to be more like that."

"Yeah," agreed Riku as Cloud walked further into the room and a bald-headed, tanned Turk moved to confront him. "The emo thing really doesn't suit him at all."

When the large man feinted, Cloud instantly pointed his sword at his neck and the man backed off. Once he did, a wheelchair came into the room occupied by a man covered in a white blanket. The newcomer made a comment about Cloud fighting like the SOLDIER he once claimed to be and Cloud identified him, a short series of flashback images going along with it.

"He should be dead." Riku frowned in confusion. No sooner had Riku said this than Rufus Shinra tried explaining what had happened to him. "Oh. That's…farfetched but okay."

"So wait, he was in a building when it blew up?"

"Yeah. Remember in Marlene's story that big building with the cylinders around it?"

"The one pumping that mako stuff?"

"Yeah, that was Shinra Building and it got trashed during the Meteor thing."

"That was the place that was all wrecked up, right?" Sora asked. When Riku nodded, he scrunched up his face. "How the hell did he make it out of that?"

"Well apparently Cloud isn't going to let us find out." On screen, Cloud was moving to leave but Rufus said something that made the swordsman pause. He turned back toward the man and asked about 'mother'.

"_What, did Kadaj say something? There are plenty of kids who miss their mothers…"_

"I am really not liking this guy." Sora pursed his lips. "He's just so… condescending toward Cloud and he can't give a straight answer to save his life. How the heck does he expect to get Cloud to help him when he's being a prick?"

"I wouldn't." Riku noted. "The guy's a bastard and has completely fucked up his world. I don't think he's sincere, he's just trying to save his own ass."

"Did you see his hand? I think he's got that stigma thing, too."

"Huh. I can see that. I mean, I think the Planet would have more against him than just about anyone else."

"Yeah."

Cloud looked like he was about to agree to help Rufus but Reno made a comment about rebuilding Shinra and his expression completely changed. He pushed the now cracked open door and walked out, brushing past the redhead with a firm, "not interested." As the door fell back shut, both Rufus and Rude said Reno's name in exasperation.

"Smooth move there, Reno." Riku snorted. "Let's totally bring up the idea of restoring the company responsible for completely screwing up Cloud's life."

"That was really dumb." Sora stood up. "I need a soda, tell me if anything important happens."

"Hurry up." Riku ordered as the younger teen walked off. "And bring me one, too!"

The movie switched over to Tifa and Marlene entering a building that Riku recognized instantly as Aerith's church. The two walked past the pews and came upon a small camp set up. Marlene asked if that was where Cloud was living and Tifa reluctantly confirmed it. When the girl picked up a dirtied white strip of cloth just like the one Denzel had been using in the beginning, Riku shouted. "Hey, Sor! Cloud's got the stigma, too!"

"Seriously?" Sora darted back into the room, tossing Riku a can of soda as he slid before the television. "Now why the heck does he have it? The Planet should love him for everything he did!"

"I have no idea." The silvered teen frowned in thought. "I'm really thinking that the stigma has nothing to do with the Planet. It makes no sense that it would be punishing people, especially innocent kids."

"Yeah, I'm having a hard time with that, too." Sora took a long drink. "Hopefully that will be explained."

Tifa was telling Marlene they were going home and the girl protested, stating that Cloud wasn't there yet. Tifa agreed and said that they all missed him and then randomly asked what they were going to do when he came back. Marlene said they'd all go home together and Tifa modified that with the statement that he would get a lecture first that Marlene instantly agreed with.

"Ookay, that felt random." Sora noted, looking back at Riku. "And if that's what Cloud has to look forward to upon coming home, I don't blame him for not wanting to be there."

Riku nodded. "Yeah. I wouldn't want to be there either."

The scene changed again and went back to Rufus and the Turks. Reno and Rude were lying on the floor in obvious pain as Kadaj casually strolled between them and headed over to Rufus, almost chuckling that he hated liars. This lead into Rufus apologizing and then stating that whatever it was Kadaj was after fell from the helicopter while they were escaping.

"Wait. Didn't he just tell Cloud that they didn't find anything?" Riku scrunched up his face. "Wow, Shinra is just trying to play everyone isn't he?"

"Yeah, well, obviously Kadaj isn't going for it either." Sora commented rather dryly. When Kadaj tossed two cards on the floor at Rufus' feet, he leaned forward to see them better. "Are those id cards?"

Riku also leaned forward a little. "Yeah… those are Tseng and Elena's. Damn, so they were caught in the beginning. I wonder if they're dead."

"Probably." Sora said in a tight voice. "Unless they're going to be held hostage but Kadaj seems to be too insane to consider that an option."

Riku lifted an eyebrow at him. "You think?"

"Yeah." The younger male tilted his head. "Though with how the three of them keep wandering around, unless they have other people helping them, there's a good chance that if Tseng and Elena are alive they'll be able to escape."

Kadaj was going on a rant about Mother and a reunion and then turned and threw out his arms in a grand gesture as he informed Rufus that he and his brothers and sisters would strike back at the planet.

"Hee-hee! It'll be glorious!" Sora giggled in a decent mockery of Kadaj's voice.

Riku snorted out a laugh. "He does look like he should be saying that!"

"He's like… a psychotic child." Sora observed, straightening his neck. "I can't decide if I like him or not."

"Yeah," agreed Riku. "He's definitely getting on my nerves."

Kadaj dropped down in front of Rufus, angling his head down. The picture began shaking a little and flashing between blue-green and red. The actual image became chaotic and odd sounds laced over the music.

"Dude! Rewind it!" Sora leaned forward, suddenly extremely attentive to what was happening onscreen.

"Why?" Riku asked even as he reached for the remote.

"I swear I saw flashes of Sephiroth in there."

Riku sent the DVD back a few frames and started it over. He played it in slow motion and Sora was in fact right. Scattered within the odd picture flashes were random images of Sephiroth. "Okay, that's trippy."

"So obviously, Kadaj is channeling him or something." Sora pursed his lips in thought. "Or, Sephiroth is somehow controlling him. I still have no idea where these three come from though."

"In the game there were these black-hooded guys called Sephiroth clones running around." Riku joined in the musing. "They could be some kind of perfected version of those."

"That would be scary. A bunch of Sephiroth clones running around? One of him is bad enough."

The screen cut back to the hillside and Cloud re-embedding the sword Kadaj had kicked down earlier. It pulled back as he stepped away and gazed at the battered weapon rather sadly. _I said I'd live out both our lives…easy to make that promise._

"Who's he talking to?" Sora asked just as it went into a series of scenes with a black-haired man with blue eyes that rivaled Cloud's. First he was in a room, then a close up of his face asking if someone was okay, and then throwing himself forward in the back of what looked like a truck and telling Cloud to run. "Whoa. That was intense and I don't get any of it."

Riku paused the movie just as it returned to Cloud, knowing this explanation was going to get a little long. "That's Zack. He was Cloud's best friend back when he was trying to get into SOLDIER. He died saving Cloud's life."

"Then does he have those cells, too?"

"Yeah, he did. After Sephiroth went crazy, both Cloud and Zack were taken by Hojo to be used as new experiments. They both got cells but were ultimately failures."

"So Hojo let them go?" Sora guessed. His expression clearly expressed that he didn't believe that.

"No, Zack regained consciousness and busted them out." Riku took a drink of soda. "See, the way I understood it, Zack's body overwhelmed the cells and they didn't take to him because of all the mako already in him. Cloud didn't have any mako to begin with and when they did a mass infusion of it along with the cells, it put him in, well, pretty much a coma. He became a listless zombie. It's really sad in the game when you see it. His just stares blankly and his head kinda bobs."

"Why didn't Cloud have any mako? I thought he was one of those SOLDIER guys."

"Naw, he never made it." Riku set his soda can back down. "It gets a bit complicated. Cloud was a cadet but failed his first attempt to get into the program. He became part of the infantry and that's how he met Zack, who was a First Class. They became close and Cloud was going to try to get into SOLDIER again but the whole Nibelheim thing happened."

"Nibelheim?" The younger teen frowned.

"That's where Sephiroth went crazy."

"Oh." Sora nodded in understanding. "And then they were taken by the mad scientist."

"Yeah."

"So, wait. Why did Rufus call him an ex-SOLDIER if he never got in?"

"Uh, well, the easy way to explain it is that after they escaped, they were on the run for awhile. Cloud was in that coma the entire time. Eventually the army caught up with them and Zack tried to hold them off but eventually he was overwhelmed and took a crap-load of bullets to the chest. They left him for dead and assumed Cloud already was.

"Cloud regained awareness, found Zack dead and, well," Riku frowned, trying to figure out the best way to put this which having to get into a psychology lesson. "Cloud's brain was a total mess and he ended up sort of, assuming Zack's life. He took Zack's life and made it into his own."

"That's…really said." Sora's blue eyes grew dark. "I could always tell that he had been through an awful lot and that his depression went a lot further than Sephiroth. It was easy for him to blame Sephiroth for everything but…he really didn't know who he was anymore. Everything he did was influenced by doubt and insecurity and that's what caused his darkness, not Sephiroth."

Riku stared at the brunet for a minute. He wasn't so much amazed that Sora had pieced all of that together because he knew better than anyone that Sora was much smarter than he let on but that the brunet had that much insight into Cloud Strife's psyche. He did not think that he had known the man that well.

Sora turned back to the TV. "He needs some major therapy."

Snorting, Riku unpaused the movie. "I thought so long as you had your light, you would be completely fine."

"Yeah, against the darkness," said Sora. "But Cloud's just a freakin' headcase."

That got Riku laughing so hard that he fell to his side on the couch. He had no idea why he found Sora calling Cloud a headcase so funny but had a pain in his chest by the time he began calming back down. He almost missed Sora's next statement. "What?"

"Cloud just had an arm attack and his eyes went all Sephiroth crazy."

"An arm attack?" Riku gasped, trying to catch his breath.

"Yeah. He's gotta have that stigma thing." Sora's spikes of hair bounced a little as he shook his head. "I swear, I am gonna give him so much flack if he spends this whole movie emoing and having arm attacks."

"What?"

"Yeah! So far, all it's been from him is angst, angst, angst," he suddenly shuddered and held his wrist, "ugh, my arm! Angst, angst…"

Riku was again over on his side. He couldn't even laugh, simply smacking his hand against the cushion. He sat up, nearly crying in amusement. "Do that again."

Sora repeated his imitation and both were howling with laughter. They completely missed the movie going back to Marlene and Tifa at the church. When they finally pulled themselves back together, Loz had walked into the church and was asking where his mother was.

"Man," Sora was still chuckling. "Those three are like a broken record. Where's Mother? Where's Mother? Maybe they should try looking instead of bothering random people."

"Right?" Riku agreed, exhaling as he calmed down. He noticed where the movie was at and grinned. "Oh, this is a kick-ass fight!"

"They're gonna fight?" Sora leaned forward. "With Marlene there?"

"You think Loz cares about that?"

"True." Tifa was pulling on her gloves and taking on a ready stance. "This should be cool. Tifa can do some awesome stuff and she doesn't even use weapons."

"I think she qualifies as a weapon all in herself."

Tifa launched herself at Loz, which he blocked and the fight took off at rapid speed. The two exchanged long series of blows, switching off between which had the upper-hand. Tifa was all over the place while Loz remained fairly stationary, relying in his strength and the odd electric-charged weapon on his wrist.

The boys winced and reacted to every hit the dark-haired woman took, especially when her head hit one of the pews as Loz flung her around. They even grimaced when Loz was taking his beatings from Tifa, getting thrown down onto the stone floor and body slammed several times. The whole thing was more intense than either of them had seen.

"Damn," muttered Sora as Tifa took hold of Loz and literally hurtled him down from a good thirty-feet in the air and into the back section of pews. "I knew she was good but… damn. Remind me to not piss her off."

"There is no way Loz is gonna just get up after that." Riku declared rather confidently. "That fight would have killed me before the first half was over."

"Yeah," Sora said slowly. "I can take a beating but that was…"

Marlene called out Tifa's name and came running toward her. Both obviously agreed with the two viewers that the fight was clearly over. Before the girl fully reached her, a rather victorious sounding medley rang out around them.

"They included that?!" Riku leaned the back of his head against the couch and laughed.

"What is it- Hey! Loz is back up and he looks barely touched! How the heck does that work?"

Riku was more interested that he had pulled out his cell phone and that the music had turned out to be his ringtone. "Oh, I am so getting that for my phone!"

Sora scrunched up his face as he looked at the older teen. "Getting what?"

"That song that just played is the victory fanfare from pretty much all of the series. It plays every time you win a fight." Riku explained, his aqua eyes bright with amusement. "Oh, Tidus and Wakka would flip out if they heard that!"

"I have got to play these games sometime." Sora pouted.

Riku smirked at him. "When you're done playing with yourself."

"You're never gonna get tired of that, are you?"

"Nope."

Back onscreen, Loz was resetting his weapon and then abruptly flung a broken pew at Tifa and Marlene. The little girl ducked as it came at them and Tifa very easily destroyed it with her fist before it could touch Marlene. The splinted and fragmented wood fluttered to the ground as Loz practically teleported toward the woman.

"Oh, he did not just do that!" Sora shouted, getting up on his knees. "What if she had gotten hurt? She can't defend herself!"

"I don't think he cares at this point."

Loz sent a direct charge into Tifa, Marlene watching with huge, scared eyes.

"Oh, he has to die!" Sora snarled out. "You don't do that shit in front of an innocent child!"

"Calm down, Sor." Riku advised, not liking how angry Sora was getting. While he agreed with the younger boy, it wasn't worth getting worked up over it.

Sora was still fuming but he sat back down and watched silently as Tifa was pressed up against a pillar. She hung rather limply in Loz's grip and another charge was sent through her. This one made the stone behind her explode and she was flung back into the bed of flowers.

She didn't get back up.

Marlene backed a few steps away as Loz approached her guardian. Loz walked up to Tifa's semi-conscious form and knelt over it, picking her upper body up by her shirt. He held up his fist at her threateningly.

Before he could do anything further, he was hit in the side of the head by a shiny, greenish object.

"Did-" Riku blinked. "Did Marlene just hit him in the head with a materia?"

"I don't know what that was but go Marlene!" Sora cheered.

The view moved as Loz looked back to find Marlene standing there, a smug expression on her face.

"Well, now she's gone and drawn attention to herself." Riku commented.

"Well, it's not like she could stand there and just let him beat the crap out of Tifa."

"I know."

Loz slowly stood and Marlene quickly grew frightened again. As the bulky man approached her, she huddled in upon herself a little and muttered, "Cloud."

It then quickly flashed back to Tifa, who had barely lifted herself up as she cried out, "Just run!"

The screen then cut to Denzel on the street. His eyes opened wide and he gasped for some reason. A girl with an odd-looking stuffed animal approached him and that was when Riku stopped the movie.

"I'm hungry." He announced.

"I'm disturbed." Sora turned and sat on his knees facing his best friend. "I can't believe he did all of that in front of her. It's like she wasn't even there."

The silver-haired youth shrugged. "They're the bad guys and they're on a mission. All they care about is finding Jenova and it doesn't matter who gets hurt in the process."

"Ugh, I hate people like that." Sora scowled.

"I'm not too fond of them myself," muttered Riku. "At least you didn't spend four months of your life surrounded by them."

"True." Sora pursed his lips. Slapping his hands on his upper legs, he grinned. "We need jalapeño poppers and mozzarella sticks!"

"Sounds good." Riku stood.

"Yeah." Sora hopped up. "And while we're making them, you can explain what the heck that materia stuff is."


End file.
